A Drachm by any other name....

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by Finn235, Dec 31, 2018.

  1. Ed Snible

    Ed Snible Well-Known Member

    "Dirham" is just the Arabic word for "Drachm". The word was used in pre-Islamic times, before there was an Arab currency called the "dirham". You shouldn't think of it as a particular series of coins. Dirhams are still used in Morocco. If you go there you can still spend "drachms" if you squint a bit.

    I am comfortable spending paper "dollars". They look and feel nothing like the silver dollars my grandfather spent. However there are people alive today who spent both and considered them interchangeable. The coin is named after the Dutch Lion "daalder" and German "thaler". I certainly don't feel like I am spending "thalers" but the word is clearly the same, just spelled and pronounced differently.
     
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  3. Finn235

    Finn235 Well-Known Member

    Got a batch imaged of my favorite coin type!

    Indo Sassanian Gadhaiya Paisa
    Finn 1.3.1 "Fancy Style"
    One of the earliest "curved head" type, this series reduces the hair bun from a * shape to a +, and adds a mysterious spire to the top of the flame.

    imgonline-com-ua-twotoone-nRIYgMF27W.jpg imgonline-com-ua-twotoone-7Nn0ZZlJ8BEsfAd.jpg imgonline-com-ua-twotoone-DfBw8lqoWZA.jpg imgonline-com-ua-twotoone-iBrZDVgMQqJrbT8.jpg imgonline-com-ua-twotoone-4gfkjAZsdXa.jpg imgonline-com-ua-twotoone-BqTJpLDHL7ygE3.jpg imgonline-com-ua-twotoone-BpOoAat1Rx4F9eqb.jpg

    They derive from this extremely rare type at the end of 1.2, Chavada series
    imgonline-com-ua-twotoone-SDOrfiHzNhTEu.jpg
     
  4. EWC3

    EWC3 (mood: stubborn)

    Yes - and there are a host of different "dirhems", at different times and places.

    Back in the 1970's I was taught "ordinary language philosophy". I thought it misguided and anti-scientific then, and I still do.

    Here is a very telling point I think - about the weight of the English "Crown". The philosophical approach to the weight of the English coinage was central to political debate - really from around at least 1660 right down till around 1820. One of the leading figures at the height of the debate in the 1690's was Nicholas Barbon.

    He wrote about his fellow citizens at the time "not one in a thousand can tell you the weight of a crown in grains"! It was ever thus I think.

    I would certainly argue that the cannonical dirhem introduced under 'Abd al Malik (from around 700 AD) can be strictly defined as weighing 60 of his ("wheat") grains, or 45 of his ("barley") grains and that that is very close to 2.93g. But that al-Tom, al-Dick or al-Harry happened to call a silver coin "a dirhem" means very little.

    I think that is quite possibly true. But I would be interested to hear if you can find any evidence for it :angelic:

    Rob T
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2019
  5. Ed Snible

    Ed Snible Well-Known Member

    The Koran tells the story of Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers. (Not Jesus' step-dad Joseph, the other Joseph son of Jacob and Rachel who had the coat of many colors). I know the Bible version, the Koran version is discussed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_in_Islam#God's_plan_to_save_Joseph

    One verse is "The (Brethren) sold him for a miserable price, for a few dirhams counted out: in such low estimation did they hold him!"

    The Koran uses the word dirham. One hopes that is the original and that it wasn't "improved" by copyists the original version Mohammad told during his life. (In the similar story in the Bible the word "shekel" is used, which at the time of Joseph was a weight, not a coin.)

    Some have claimed the Koran was modified at a later date with the word "dirham". I found a long religious argument at https://www.islamic-awareness.org/quran/contrad/external/dirham discussing the issue. The author claims pre-Islamic poetry by ʿAntara has the line "The first pure showers of every rain-cloud rained upon it, and left every puddle in it like a dirham."

    I suspect the poem by ʿAntara isn't great evidence, because it also could have been substituted by copyists. So I'm left with two textual citations, but neither contemporary enough.
     
  6. TypeCoin971793

    TypeCoin971793 Just a random guy on the internet

  7. Finn235

    Finn235 Well-Known Member

    I still have a *long* way to go, but I sometimes dabble in collecting Hunnic drachms

    Hephthalites and related, Peroz-imitations
    Hephthalite Peroz drachm early.jpg Hephthalite peroz drachm late.jpg Hephthalite peroz drachm legend cm.jpg
    Hephthalite peroz drachm tamgha.jpg
    "North Tokharistan" / Kobadien type
    North tokharistan 1.jpg Tokharistan peroz copy 3.jpg Tokharistan peroz copy 2.jpg Tokharistan peroz copy 4.jpg

    Nezaks 20170726_20161221_121335.jpg

    Nezak-Alchon alliance
    Nezak alchon crossover.jpg
     
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  8. EWC3

    EWC3 (mood: stubborn)

    Thanks again Ed – its a delight to correspond with you.

    To be honest I had in mind the Islamic texts that try to explain the political history of Islamic coins and weights. Most of that stuff comes from Baladhuri and Tabari, and the problem is - they are writing around 850 AD. So its a bit like trusting Shakespeare about Richard III.

    I had not thought of going to the Koran. If I wanted to play hard ball I would point you to a book on the Koran by Noldeke (see Google books) and make two points. First that we do not even know that Muhammed could read or write, and second, that people spent 400 years after Muhammed arguing about which version of the Koran was correct. But actually, I think you make a very strong point. There does not seem to be any written version of the Koran that does not use the word “dirhem” – and yes - that points pretty strongly to it being some sort of pre-existing Arabic dialect version of “drachm”

    We agree on that ‘Antara poem two. I could not find a date fro the earliest written version but I suspect it is late. Trusting that might be like trusting Geoffrey of Monmouth about Merlin?

    A more important point is – what do key sources mean when they write “dirhem”? I have in mind the great scientist Alberuni writing about 1030 AD. He clearly uses the term as indicating his own very exact standard – but I do not know what it was. The problem I face is that only one of his books has ever been translated – and that was his “India” way back in 1888. He wrote a bunch of scientific books on other topics – but none of them have been translated.

    We surely have way more professional people today working on Islamic history than there were back in 1888. But hardly anyone takes a serious interest in this topic any more – and the work of translating major texts has near stopped altogether. Strange.

    Rob T
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2019
  9. Finn235

    Finn235 Well-Known Member

    Actually an interesting point about the Koran... I recall that there are verses in there that define the value of dinars and dirhems in terms of things like goats or sheep... certainly interesting since AFAIK the dirhem didn't exist as a coin until about a century after the Koran was first put into writing. The dinar/mithqal however was carried over from the Sassanians straight to the Arabs.

    I'll need to do some searching, bit I found this interesting site that gives some history on the coinage reform and how the weight was selected:
    https://islamiccoins.ancients.info/umayyads/readingumayyadcoins.htm
     
  10. EWC3

    EWC3 (mood: stubborn)

    Another quibble, but a crucial one in this context. The (Islamic) dinar/mithacal was c. 4.25g and seems to be derive from (the Seleucid version) of the ancient Attic drachm. Further, that it seems to have been remembered in the territory of the old Roman empire, where it replaced the Roman/Byzantine gold solidus, nominally of 4.54g. Meanwhile the Sasanid silver drachm weighed c. 4.13g.

    Amongst the confusion of the early ‘Arab’ population of the new caliphate - it looks quite possible that 4.54g, 4.25g and 4.13g all got called ‘a mithcal’. Of course, the minority who knew the difference might make a profit out of that knowledge….

    As the author of the linked text pointed out – the problem with this text is that it was written about 500 years after the crucial events it describes. And there are no text at all less than 150 years after those events.

    This is good for numismatists maybe, since the only hard evidence we have is things like the coins themselves! What follows is largely rooted in Steve Album’s (sensational) Checklist 2011 3rd edition – but with a caveat.

    Up until about 825 AD we have lots of Islamic dirhems, and they were clearly intended to weight c. 2.93g. This determination (actually 2.92g) was published in London in 1967. I checked it myself, other UK collectors checked it, then Lutz Ilisch in Germany checked it. Everybody over here agreed it. I think Steve Album rather begrudgingly agreed it by 2011 – but he writes things like “it weighed the canonical weight of 2.97g or a bit less”. I am going to take that as saying c. 2.93g.

    Now the Ibn al-Athir text cited above makes the dirhem c. 2.97g (7/10 x c. 4.25 = c. 2.97g). The problem is Ibn al-Athir is maybe relying on sources from at best about 870 AD.

    The chain of actual of events (taken from Album) seem to be – the dirhem weight c. 2.93g down to c. 825 AD. Then, during a rebellion, production of dirhems almost stopped. Plentiful supply of dirhems began again round about 875 AD. But now they did not weigh anything exact at all. From now on payments were made not by count - but by weight. What we do have is thousands of copper weights, often of 5 or 10 dirhems. And the weight of that dirhem – taken from the weights – is rather exactly 2.97g.

    So from the objects (coins and weights) it seem that historians around 870 AD have shunted what happened around 825 AD back to 700 AD. A kind of re-write of historical fact.

    I think the rebellions associated with these 825-875 AD changes were led by Kharijites, and I think it fair to say their ideas were roughly along anarchist/libertarian lines. If you add to that the sort of ideas about money which that kind of modern writer (say Rothbard) holds, the whole matter starts to make some sort of sense…..

    Time to stop for today I think - criticism welcome.

    Rob T
     
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