Sylloge Numorom Arabicorum Tubingen: Palastina IVa Bilad as-Sam I.

• Author: Schick, Robert

This book is the first of a planned series of perhaps thirty-five volumes that will publish the fifty thousand or so Islamic coins in the collections of Tubingen University, using the Sylloge Numorum Graecorum as a model. The present volume publishes 577 gold, silver, and copper Arabic coins minted in southern Syria/Palestine in the two junds (provinces) of Filastin and al-Urdunn. Almost all of the coins date to the Umayyad through Fatimid periods, but the few Arabic coins minted in the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem in Jerusalem and Akko and some Ayyubid coins from Gaza are also included. The Tubingen collection hardly has an example of every coin issue minted in Palestine, but is nonetheless remarkable for its comprehensiveness.

The book begins with a few pages explaining the objectives of the publication series and how the presentation of the coins is organized, along with a discussion of some chronological questions. The author makes no effort to rehearse such well-known topics as Abd al-Malik's reform of the coinage, but rather confines his all too brief remarks to the undated post-reform Umayyad copper coinage. Examination of the numerous cases of overstriking helps the author to see a first stage of issues with purely religious inscriptions and a second stage of coins characterized by three concentric circles on the obverse, both of which were issued widely in both junds. Later the two junds went their separate ways, reflecting broader administrative developments. In Filastin coins had a characteristic outer circle of striations on the obverse, followed by coins with inscriptions around the edge on both obverse and reverse. The author suggests that Jerusalem continued to be the mint for coins bearing the mint name of Filastin rather than a city name, which may demonstrate that Jerusalem continued as the capital even after al-Ramla was founded as the administrative center of the province. Meanwhile in al-Urdunn, minting was concentrated in Tiberias, and included coins mentioning the caliph al-Walid and later ones with a portion of the Qur anic...