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Message:: [QUOTE="dltsrq, post: 2237048, member: 75482"]It's about which authority issued the coin. The first coins issued in the near east under explicit Muslim authority probably date from the 650s or so. I mentioned the year 622 for the benefit those who may not have realized that Islam did not exist before the 7th century. If you see a coin with Arabic inscriptions, it is almost certainly "medieval" or later. So yes, some "ancient" coins were issued later than some "medieval" coins. In those areas of India which eventually came under Islam, "medieval" is effectively synonymous with "Islamic", leaving many coins of the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries to be classed as "ancient". That's the problem, of course. The terms "ancient" and "medieval" were meant to describe Europe and, as others have already suggested, become less meaningful the further away we move geographically.[/QUOTE]