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Pashiz / Fals - Aban b. al-Walid Arab-Sasanian
| Issuer | Umayyad Caliphate |
|---|---|
| Year | 750-780 |
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| Composition | Copper |
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| Obverse description | Crude bust facing right in the Arab-Sasanian tradition, rendered in low relief with simplified linear features characteristic of early Islamic copper coinage. The effigy appears within a roughly circular flan showing the typical degraded Sasanian royal portrait, with traces of a headdress or crown visible above the head. The design reflects the transitional period of Arab-Sasanian coinage under Umayyad provincial administration, retaining vestigial iconographic elements inherited from Sasanian prototypes. The field is worn and irregularly struck, consistent with the modest production standards of small-denomination copper pashiz issues. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Central field bears a multi-line Arabic inscription arranged in horizontal registers, characteristic of Umayyad-era fals coinage that replaced earlier fire-altar motifs with religious or administrative legends. The text is executed in an early angular Arabic hand within a series of concentric linear borders forming a square or rectangular frame, a hallmark of Arab-Sasanian copper issues of this period. The border arrangement echoes the decorative framing conventions common to Umayyad provincial copper coinage of the late first century AH. The overall strike is uneven, with flat areas and die wear consistent with a heavily circulated, low-denomination copper piece. |
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| Additional information |
Aban b. al-Walid governed in the east during the turbulent final collapse of Umayyad authority, and copper issues attributed to him sit at an awkward transitional moment — Arab-Sasanian coinage was already an anachronism by the 750s, with fully Arabicized reformed coinage having been standard for decades. That this type was struck at all suggests either local administrative inertia or a deliberate accommodation of regional market expectations in areas where Sasanian monetary forms still circulated by habit.
At under a gram, this is among the lightest examples in the Arab-Sasanian copper sequence.