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Message:: [QUOTE="Pellinore, post: 3181652, member: 74834"]What I do have, are a few islamic dynasty lions. Seljuk lions are very impressive, much more so than these of the Qarakhanids, a dynasty (980-1210 AD) of Turkic people who settled in the former Sogdian area (Silk Route) in what is now Uzbekistan more or less. Powerful, but all the time fighting internecine wars, there are hundreds of great and little emirs with different titles, no single ruler can be named that was really great. This coin is called 'fals', the word is derived from the Roman follis. The Qarakhanid fals can be quite attractive, a large and thin coin. Most of these were only calligraphic, but there are some with pictures, like a sword or a fish. Here's one with an animal often described as a lion. It is surrounded by broken chains. Often these coins are very worn and damaged, and my moth-eaten one is no exception.You usually see coins issued around 1000 AD, but this one is from the much rarer middle period.  [ATTACH=full]819996[/ATTACH] AE fals Qarakhanids, Jabrail b. Umar b. Yusuf, Bukhara 494 AH = 1100 AD. Obv. lion with chains. Rev. triangle with hollow sides. 25 mm, 3,47 gr. Kochnev 1346.[/QUOTE]