Dirham - Fakhr al-Din Qara Arslan long-haired bust

Fakhr al-Din Qara Arslan ruled Hisn Kayfa from roughly 1144 to 1167, navigating the competing pressures of Zengid expansion and the fragmented politics of the Jazira with enough skill to keep his branch of the Artuqid dynasty intact. The unusual long-haired bust type associated with his copper issues has drawn considerable scholarly attention — the iconographic source remains debated, with proposals ranging from Byzantine prototypes to Syriac Christian artistic influence filtering through the workshops of the upper Tigris region.

The Artuqids produced copper coinage partly because silver was difficult to source consistently this far from major trade arteries. Zeno catalogue number 20388 records known die specimens that help establish the sequence of this type within Qara Arslan's reign.