Catalog
Dirham - Temp. Ögedei
| Issuer | Great Mongol Empire |
|---|---|
| Year | 1229-1241 |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Reverse description | Epigraphic reverse displaying a multi-line Persian or Arabic legend in Naskh script covering the full field of the irregular flan, struck in raised relief. The inscription, typical of Mongol-period dirhams from eastern mints, is arranged in horizontal lines across the coin's surface without a border or decorative frame. The strike is bold but slightly off-center, consistent with the hand-hammered production methods of early 13th-century Mongol coinage. A partial decorative border of pellets or dashes is faintly visible on the right margin, characteristic of eastern Islamic mint output during the AH 624–639 period. |
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| Mint | Eastern mint (Central Asia, AH 624-639) |
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| Additional information |
Ögedei's reign as Great Khan following his father Genghis Khan's death in 1227 saw the Mongol administration grappling with how to govern a conquered sedentary economy using a nomadic political structure. Silver dirhams like this one were struck not from any Mongol monetary tradition — they had none — but because the existing Islamic minting infrastructure in the conquered territories simply kept operating, now under new authority. The coinage was a pragmatic inheritance, not a deliberate policy.
SICA 9 #1978K places this within the Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum series cataloguing Central Asian material from the Ashmolean and related collections.