Arghun Khan's reign saw a sustained attempt to reorient Ilkhanate political culture away from Islamic convention, and these gold dinars reflect that directly. Arghun was a practicing Buddhist with close ties to Nestorian Christian advisors, and his administration stripped Arabic religious formulae from the coinage — a striking departure from his predecessors. The hawk-and-sun device draws on older Turco-Mongol solar symbolism that predates Islam in the steppe tradition entirely.
Album 2144A is among the rarer variants of the Arghun gold series. Diler's Ar-172 designation places it within a tightly defined typological group, though surviving examples vary enough in mint and date legibility to complicate precise attribution.
Arghun Khan's reign saw a sustained attempt to reorient Ilkhanate political culture away from Islamic convention, and these gold dinars reflect that directly. Arghun was a practicing Buddhist with close ties to Nestorian Christian advisors, and his administration stripped Arabic religious formulae from the coinage — a striking departure from his predecessors. The hawk-and-sun device draws on older Turco-Mongol solar symbolism that predates Islam in the steppe tradition entirely.
Album 2144A is among the rarer variants of the Arghun gold series. Diler's Ar-172 designation places it within a tightly defined typological group, though surviving examples vary enough in mint and date legibility to complicate precise attribution.