Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Follis "Justin and Sophia" - Sasanian Occupation of Syria
| Issuer | Sasanian Empire (Sasanian Empire (224-651)) |
|---|---|
| Year | 610-630 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Round (irregular) |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Latin |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Large denomination numeral M (forty nummi) occupies the central field, surmounted by a cross above. To the left of the M, the letters Α, И, И, and O are arranged vertically in the field; to the right appears the letter X. In the exergue below, the mint signature ИΙKOH identifies the mint of Nicomedia, with the officina letter B indicating the second workshop. The layout follows the standard Byzantine follis reverse composition, here struck under Sasanian occupation. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Between 611 and 619, Sasanian forces under Shahrbaraz swept through Roman Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, temporarily dismantling the eastern Roman monetary infrastructure entirely. This follis belongs to the contested output of that occupation period — coins struck on Roman flans, in Roman module, but under Persian administrative authority. The attribution to Justin and Sophia is typological rather than political; the Sasanians were not honoring a Roman emperor but exploiting existing dies and a population already habituated to the coinage.
Heraclius eventually recovered the territories by 628, rendering this occupation currency obsolete within roughly a decade of its first striking.