The cartoonification of Khusro II is complete

Another recent auction win, of a coin I've been seeking for some time:

Arab-Sasanian, Eastern Sistan series. AR drachm (31 mm, 3.34 g). "Salih 'Imad". No date (c.780s AD). Obverse: Cartoonish bust of Khusro II, Arabic inscription in margin "Bismillah Salih 'Imad". Reverse: Bad copy of Sassanian-Style reverse, blundered Pahlavi mintmark SK (Sakastan), no date. Cf. Album 89C, Wilkes 85. This coin: Triskeles 23, lot 670.

The earliest Islamic silver coins were based on copies of Sasanian drachms. This template was replaced in most of the Islamic world around 700 AD as the "post-reform" silver dirhams entered circulation, with a novel design containing only Arabic inscriptions. However, Sassanian-style silver coinage persisted along the edges of the Muslim world for many decades. I wrote a previous post about the coinage of Eastern Sistan, a region along the border of modern Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan:
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/arab-sasanian-from-the-edge-of-the-empire.311813/
This coin is one of the latest in the Eastern Sistan series, and you can really see the decline in artistic standards. I made this figure to show a direct comparison of the original Sasanian design, a faithful Arab-Sasanian copy, and early and late Eastern Sistan versions:

Also of note, many of the later Eastern Sistan coins bear names, presumably of local governors. Unfortunately, historical records of the region at that time are poor, so many of these names are unknown to history, and "Salih 'Imad" is one of those forgotten men. Although this coin has clearly degraded from its Sasanian model, I do think the "cartoon" style is not without its merits. Post your related coins here.

 

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Where to start... here are some earlier ones: a Hormizd V imitation (he was Xusro II's father) with countermark, an early Xusro II coin, a resplendent later one, but with countermarks of his enemies, and a drachm of one of his short-lived successors, Ardashir III (628-630).

 

I love these beautifully caricatural Sasanian imitations of the 8th-9th century, issued by the Gurjaras of Pratihara in northwest India (Gujarat).

 

But these coins are Sasanian imitations, too. The first one I unfortunately missed, but it shows quite well the Sasanian head and crown that impressed the Early Medievals apparently.
Little bronzes issued (6th or 7th cent.) in or around Kesh, now Sharisabz in Uzbekistan. With a tribal tamgha on the reverse.

 

Will we be seeing him in the comics section in the Sunday newspaper??

 

i was just looking at one today..but i know very little about them.

 

Great stuff, both @Parthicus and @Pellinore... the OP coin is fantastic (really want one!!) and I love those Uzbek bronzes.

Here's a little display of the classic Sasanian fire altar drachm as well as its precursors and some later developments:


Reverses:

 

kool SA.. very informative!

 

That's a mighty fine panorama, @Severus Alexander. Of course it comprises a much larger area than Xusro II's influence - his coins were one instant of a long tradition, started in the first century I think, with the Persis coins you show. And because Xusro II fought so many wars, the coins he used to pay his army were spread over a large area. Being made of fine silver, they set a commercial standard that was to be followed for several centuries, influencing the Islamic dirham in fabric, too.

 

And then we have fantastic coins like this Chalukya gadhaiya paisa from India, dating from 940-1030 AD: domed head to right, fire altar on reverse reduced to horizontal lines with a star in the middle. A thick silver coin of 10-15 mm, weighing 4.2 gr. This one comes from the collection of the great numismatic savant Robert Tye.
About this type (and its Sasanian forebears), here's an informative web page by someone well known to us all.

 

I think I have this attribution correct:

Ancient Hunnic Silver Drachm
32 mm, 3.5g.
"Phromo Kesaro"
Hephthalites or Nezak Huns, ca. Mid 8th Century
Imitating Hormazd IV from Balkh Mint, Regnal Year 11

Obverse: Crowned Sasanian-style bust, facing right. Countermark (at 3:00): Stylized human head, facing left, in profile, with tamgha.
Reverse: Fire altar, with attendants on either side. Mint mark on right, regnal year ("11", blundered) on left. Countermark (at 7:00): "ΦRORO" in Baktrian.

 

Here’s mine
Khosrou II 590-591 CE AR Drachm, 4 grams, 33mm

 

I have seen the attribution to "Phromo Kesaro" before but am not convinced. The countermark "ΦRORO in Baktrian" sure looks like "ΦOPO" in Greek to me. That means "in tribute" and was used to refer to money brought in as tribute from a foreign state. I look at this mark rather like the UK silver marked "Lima" (the silver was captured in raids on the Spanish settlements in the New World). I see four letters, not five.

 

I think "in tribute" is a definite possibility. The conventional wisdom seems to be that these coins were made in imitation of Sassanian drachms, but I can't figure out why someone would counter-stamp their own coin. Are we sure these aren't official issues with counter-stamps?

The problem is that there appears to be 5 letters in the reverse counter-stamp. The example in the photo you posted sure looks like "ΦPORPO" (Phroro). These are Greek letters. Why do most sources say "ΦRORO in Baktrian"?

 

I agree entirely with your reading of the countermark as Greek, but would tweak your argument a bit by suggesting that just ahead of the initial phi you are seeing, is a mark (o) for the definite article (h)o' as in 'o phoro.

 

It is four letters: "фopo".

Here's mine:


The drawing on zeno.ru shows it better: https://www.zeno.ru/showphoto.php?photo=156173

The main article on these is Dietrich Schnädelbach in ONS Newsletter 169 (Spring 2001). 50MB download at http://orientalnumismaticsociety.org/JONS/Files/ONS_169.pdf . The article explains the "PhORO = Phromo Kesaro" explanation is from Göbl but doesn't challenge it.

 

So you are saying that, what looks to me as "OP" at the beginning--two letters, is actually just a "PHI"--one letter? That could be the source of my confusion.

 

Highly interesting coins and discussion: that both the Parthian and Sassanian coin portraiture descended (or developed, depending on your preference) into an increasingly schematic dots-and-lines style is curious — though, of course, they were far from the only ones.

Offering my two cents as somebody entirely ignorant of all the matters being treated on here: I would have guessed the фOPO countermark read "OÞOPO" (five letters with the second being the Bactrian "sh"). Are those distinctive-looking фs attested elsewhere?

 

I also read it as five letters and I scanned the inscription upside-down. It is only the Zeno.ru entry that made me flip my photo and see the ф. I had originally thought of the special Baktrian-only Greek letter "Sho" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sho_(letter)

There are very few Baktrian inscriptions, and even fewer from this time period, and not much scholarly consensus. Let me give an example. You'll need JSTOR access to read this article: http://www.jstor.org/stable/24048900 "Pangul, a Turko-Baktrian Ruler". That coin has an inscription that might read "sri bago odebo" in Baktrian. The "odebo" looks a great deal like the фOPO we are discussing.

 

Thanks to Ed Snible for posting the notes and links he did. The same question you asked occurred to me and I have started a little quest to see what I can find. Here is a link to a body of early text called the Rabatak inscription: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Rabatak_inscription.jpg

Here are some isolated word entries from that text:


In all but one case the letter Phi is the normal Greek form, and not formed by adding a circle to the Bactrian added letter (þ) used to transcribe the š sound. Since both letter forms were native to Bactrian from early on, there would be no reason to do a modified engraving of it for use in the countermark.

Based on this preliminary result I am inclined to read five letters instead of four. But I have not yet looked at the Schnädelbach argument, and am holding off judgement. How about you?