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bd251's Last 20 Posts
| How Far Back Can We Go? Sixth Edition! We Need - 1452 C. E. (A. H. 856) -
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bd251
Pillar of the Community
United States
1080 Posts |
 Posted 02/02/2023 9:09 pm
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I think I found an AH855 coin. Will update when it arrives.
Last year I was decided I wanted to start branching out into medieval coins. Apparently I collect Islamic coins now. I like how a lot of the coins from this period can be found with decent details, are often dated, and have some weight to them. They don't feel like they will break or fly away like some of the European hammered coins I have. |
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| How Far Back Can We Go? Sixth Edition! We Need - 1452 C. E. (A. H. 856) -
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bd251
Pillar of the Community
United States
1080 Posts |
Posted 02/01/2023 3:42 pm
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Quote:
I almost said that this is 849 but I looked it up, and indeed apparently their 5 looks like ε (which is of course a later 4 shape) while their 4 looks like (mirrored) φ.
(On Ottoman coins of that period the 5 is a B shape. There's a lot of variety in these early Eastern Arabic digits. Unfortunately I've never seen a good historical comparison.)
Then there's 6... I agree, this is probably a 9 but I'd want to see it in hand before trying to guess anything for sure from those pics.
Now that you say it, I can also see it possibly being a 6 with weird shadows due to lighting. We'll see when I have it in hand.
I have found the comparison section of the Arabic numerals Wikipedia article to be somewhat helpful https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals
Here's the relevant screen clip from that article.
I can tell you what I've observed from looking at a lot of coins. When learning to read dates on these Islamic era coins, the 4 and 5 were what really threw me off. As you said, the 5 here looks like the modern eastern Arabic 4 you might expect. The 5 will also appear in the orientation where it looks like a w, sometimes with the tales elongated and curved somewhat inward. If you look at the Persian or Urdu digits, you will see how this is a 5.
The 4 is often depicted as you described, but can also look like my example for AH864, differentiated from a squared-off 2 by the outward curved tail. I've also seen variations in between (loop with the tail). These styles differ even from the modern 4s above. Until very recently, I hadn't seen the Persian style of 4 on a coin from this period. I can't recall the exact coin (I think I saved the reference. I'll check later) but I remember the date as 9*4.
The other 5 related confusion comes with how 0 is written. From modern script, you would expect 0 to be a dot, but I have mostly seen it as an open o, which could be confused for a modern 5.
I've only very recently become confident in reading the dates, so I haven't yet paid attention to whether the script variations are regional, regnal, or at the discretion of the die maker.
Again, this is mostly just observation from looking at a lot of coins and confirming with other dated examples. I am not an expert.
It's also unfortunate that it seems the forum does not support the Arabic characters 
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