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Ancients: Artuqids of Mardin....
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Description
Islamic
Artuqids of Mardin. Najam al-Din Alpi. 547-572/1152-1176. AE dirham (33 mm, 17.74 g, 12 h). Two diademed and draped male busts facing one another; dot between Arabic inscription "Najam al-Din / Malik Diyarbakr" / Byzantine emperor (on left) standing facing, crowned by the Virgin (on right) standing facing. Arabic inscription "Abu al-Muzaffar Alpi bin Timurtash bin Il-Ghazi bin Artuq". S/S/ 28; Poole 31; BMC III 372-4. Good VF, dark brown-green patina with earthen highlights. A well centered and nicely struck specimen.This coin illustrates the wonderfully eclectic reuse of ancient and roughly contemporary foreign coin iconography that typifies many Turkoman issues of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Here, the engraver has taken a portrait derived from the coins of the Hellenistic Greek Seleucid monarch, Antiochus VII (138-129 B.C.) and doubled it, apparently to represent Gemini of the Zodiac. A single Antiochus VII portrait type occurs on other issues of Najam al-Din Alpi. For the reverse, the engraver has imitated a type found on Byzantine gold histamena nomisma of the eleventh century. Such usage of ancient and foreign coin types illustrates the existence of coin collections in Mardin from which the engravers could draw inspiration. It has been suggested that these might have belonged to local Nestorian Christian religious communities.
Auction Info
2009 May Long Beach, CA Signature World & Ancient Coin Auction #3005 (go to Auction Home page)
Auction Dates
May, 2009
28th-31st
Thursday-Sunday
Bids + Registered Phone Bidders: 8
Lot Tracking Activity: N/A
Page Views: 241
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15% of the successful bid per lot.
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