Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
1 Fals - Yelü Dashi
| Issuer | Western Liao dynasty |
|---|---|
| Year | 1124-1143 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | 24 mm |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Hammered copper fals of irregular round flan, the obverse field bearing a multi-line Arabic inscription arranged horizontally across the coin. The legend, executed in a somewhat crude Kufic-influenced script characteristic of Central Asian Islamic coinage of the 12th century, proclaims the Shahada and records the mint and date of issue (538 AH). The flat field shows significant surface porosity and corrosion consistent with age, and the flan edges are irregular due to the hand-hammered production method. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Arabic |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Yelü Dashi founded the Western Liao — known in Islamic sources as the Qara Khitai — after fleeing the Jurchen Jin conquest of the Liao dynasty in 1125, leading a small retinue westward across the steppe before carving out a Central Asian empire that eventually stretched from the Tarim Basin to the Syr Darya. His coinage continued the cash tradition of his ancestral Liao dynasty almost without interruption, a deliberate political act signaling continuity with the Khitan imperial line he had left behind. The Jurchen, meanwhile, were issuing their own cash in the east.
Surviving examples attributable to his reign are scarce in Western collections — most institutional holdings derive from Soviet-era archaeological work in modern Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.