The Arab-Sasanian copper series occupies an awkward transitional moment: the early Umayyad administration had not yet committed to a fully reformed coinage, and local mints continued striking debased imitations of Sasanian prototypes for decades after the conquest. Abd al-Malik's sweeping monetary reform of 696–698 AD standardized the gold and silver issues, but copper was left largely unregulated, produced by regional authorities with inconsistent weight standards and no fixed iconographic program. This piece falls into that unresolved gap.
At 0.85g, it sits well below even the loosest fals weight norms of the period, suggesting either a heavily clipped flan or a mint operating without central oversight.
The Arab-Sasanian copper series occupies an awkward transitional moment: the early Umayyad administration had not yet committed to a fully reformed coinage, and local mints continued striking debased imitations of Sasanian prototypes for decades after the conquest. Abd al-Malik's sweeping monetary reform of 696–698 AD standardized the gold and silver issues, but copper was left largely unregulated, produced by regional authorities with inconsistent weight standards and no fixed iconographic program. This piece falls into that unresolved gap.
At 0.85g, it sits well below even the loosest fals weight norms of the period, suggesting either a heavily clipped flan or a mint operating without central oversight.