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50 Dirhams - Khalifa Archaeological Excavation
| Issuer | United Arab Emirates |
|---|---|
| Year | 2009 |
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| Value | 50 Dirhams |
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| Obverse description | Draped bust of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan in three-quarter view facing slightly right, wearing traditional Gulf headdress (keffiyeh and agal), set within a beaded inner border. The Arabic legend arcing across the upper field reads His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, while the lower field bears the denomination 50 Dirhams and the title President of the United Arab Emirates, all in Arabic script. The portrait is rendered in fine relief with a polished proof finish to the field. |
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| Reverse description | Central depiction of the Umm Al Nar archaeological site on an island near Abu Dhabi, showing excavation trenches and ancient tomb structures in low relief, commemorating the location of the first systematic archaeological excavations conducted in Abu Dhabi beginning in 1959. A bilingual legend in Arabic and Latin script surrounds the central motif, recording the fiftieth anniversary of those excavations. The date range 1959–2009 appears prominently within the design, and the site name Umm Al Nar is inscribed in Arabic. |
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| Additional information |
Issued to mark the archaeological excavations at Mleiha in Sharjah and other UAE heritage sites that gained significant federal attention in the late 2000s, this commemorative reflects a deliberate push by UAE authorities to anchor national identity in pre-Islamic history rather than exclusively in the oil era. Mleiha had yielded Iron Age and pre-Islamic Arabian material including a fort, tombs, and evidence of a local coinage tradition — an irony not lost on numismatists that a region with its own ancient monetary history would commemorate that fact on a modern struck piece.