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Dinar - Shapur III
| Issuer | Sasanian Empire |
|---|---|
| Year | 383-388 |
| Type | Commemorative circulation coin |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Pahlavi (Middle Persian) |
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| Reverse description | A fire altar decorated with hanging ribbons occupies the centre of the field, the sacred flame rendered in stylised form. Within the flames, the bust of the deity Ahuramazda appears to the right. Two attendants stand flanking the altar, each facing inward toward the sacred fire in the devotional posture typical of Sasanian religious iconography. The composition reflects the Zoroastrian theological centrality of fire worship in the Sasanian dynastic tradition. |
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| Additional information |
Shapur III's reign lasted just five years, ending in 388 AD when his own nobles strangled him with his tent ropes — a detail that speaks to the precarious relationship between Sasanian kings and their nobility throughout the dynasty's later centuries. His coinage is consequently scarce by simple arithmetic of time, and the Göbl Sasanian corpus carries no assigned type number for this dinar, placing it among the less systematically documented issues of the third century Sasanian sequence.
The SNS Schaaf 334 reference provides the more reliable attribution anchor here.