Featured A very rare coin of the Khazars

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by Parthicus, Jun 24, 2020.

  1. EWC3

    EWC3 (mood: stubborn)

    I agree - but things got hectic here so I have to be brief.

    A big problem is to do with a basic imbalance in the evidence. By their nature coins tend to leave strong evidence of where they come from and where they are going. Slaves do not. And historical text are none too useful on either. Leaves us guessing.

    The book you cite seems to give a lot of useful evidence - but at a quick look the author seems to follow the agenda set by Braudel and applied by Noonan. That Islam suffered a "silver crisis" – that their mines merely ran out of metal or some such. This seems to me to kind of sanitise our understanding of some of the rather nastier things that were going on in history – closing down of the market economy, serfdom and slavery etc

    In bed last night I remember the name of the old guy I talked to in Oxford – called ‘Lieber A. E.’ in the literature (Albert I think – his letter and paper are lost in my files). The paper he sent me – criticising that “silver crisis” thesis – does not seem to even get a mention on the web. I see however is he much mentioned concerning discussions of sightings of a supernova in 1054 AD. Sigh – I wish I had gotten to talk to him longer

    In haste

    Rob T
     
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  3. Tejas

    Tejas Well-Known Member

    The OP coin is great. However, I would like to know on what basis it is attributed to the Khazars. In my view this imitation could have been made by a number of peoples, included Volga Bulgars and Slavs.

    Here is an undisputed Khazar coin, complete with so called Turkic runes. The coin is very rare. Sorry for the poor picture. Its the seller's picture:

    Screenshot 2022-03-15 at 21.31.13.png
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2022
  4. dltsrq

    dltsrq Grumpy Old Man

    According to Album (p. 158, K1481.2n), coins like the op "are tentatively assigned to the Khazars because their prototypes antedate the earliest prototypes used by the Volga-Bulghars and because they have been found in regions of the former Khazarian domain". As far as I know there are are no "undisputed" Khazar coins. If there is any one thing that all proposed Khazar coins share in common, it's that their attribution is disputed. Several candidates have been proposed and each has its respective champions and naysayers. Perhaps the most probable are dirhams of 'Abbasid style with a mint name read as Ard al-Khazar:
    https://www.zeno.ru/showgallery.php?cat=13765
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2022
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  5. Tejas

    Tejas Well-Known Member

    I would argue that the following three types of Dirhems can be assigned to the Khazars with some level of confidence:

    1. Those with the Arabic inscription : "Musa rasul Allah" = Moses is the messenger of God. The Khazar elite adopted Judaism and this inscription is probably a reference to that.
    2. Those with turkic "runes" (also called "Khazar runiform") inscription. According to my information, this mysterious alphabet was only used by the Khazars.
    3. Those with the so called Khazarian tamga, i.e. a sign that identified Khazar rulers.

    However, it is of course well possible that many anonymous imitations from southern Russia have also been produced by the Khazars. Findspot evidence would be very helpful.
     
    Last edited: Mar 16, 2022
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