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Drachm - Muqatil b. Misma' Arab-Sasanian
| Issuer | Umayyad Caliphate |
|---|---|
| Year | 691-692 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Drachm (1) |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Bust of the Sasanian king facing right in the Khusro II style, wearing a distinctive winged and crescent-surmounted crown with elaborate korymbos. The effigy displays a beaded necklace and draped shoulders rendered in the late Sasanian artistic tradition. Flanking the bust in the outer field are two small crescent-and-pellet devices at the left and right. A multi-line Arabic bismillah or governor's name inscription appears in the margin, consistent with Arab-Sasanian transitional coinage. The portrait retains strong Sasanian iconographic conventions adapted under early Umayyad administration. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Muqatil b. Misma' served as governor of a Sasanian frontier district under Umayyad authority during the period when Arab administrators were still issuing coins that borrowed almost entirely from late Sasanian prototypes — fire altars, Middle Persian inscriptions, and regnal dating intact. This particular issue falls within the narrow transitional window just before Abd al-Malik's sweeping monetary reform of 696 CE, which abolished figural coinage across the caliphate and replaced it with purely epigraphic Islamic types. Once that reform took hold, Arab-Sasanian drachms ceased entirely.
Muqatil's issues are sparsely documented in the numismatic literature, and confirmed die studies remain incomplete.