Dinar - Shapur I

Shapur I issued this coinage in the aftermath of one of the most humiliating defeats Rome ever suffered: his capture of the emperor Valerian at the Battle of Edessa in 260 AD — the first and only time a reigning Roman emperor was taken prisoner in battle. The Sasanian mints were operating at peak output during this window, supplying a court flush with Roman ransom payments, plunder, and the labor of thousands of Roman prisoners, including engineers who likely worked on Shapur's great building projects at Bishapur and Ctesiphon.

The Göbl I/1 type is the earliest classified dinar of Shapur's reign, predating the fire-altar reverse variants that appear later in the sequence.