ISLAMIC, Anatolia & al-Jazira (Post-Seljuk). Mengüjekids (Erzincan & Kermakh). Fakhr al-Din Bahram Shah, AH 560-622 / AD 1165-1225. Dirham (Bronze, 19 mm, 2.59 g), Arzanjan (Erzincan), AH 570 = 1174/5. Citing the ruler’s full titulature in the margin, ‘Fakhr al-Du[nyā wa al-Dīn Abu’l-Muẓaffar Bahrām]shāh ibn Dāwūd’, continued in the central circle, ‘ibn Isḥāq / nāṣir amīr / al-muʾminīn’ (‘Fakhr al-Dunya wa al-Din Abu’l-Muzaffar Bahramshah, son of Da’ud, son of Ishaq, helper of the Commander of the Believers’ in Arabic). Rev. In the margin, ‘ḍuriba hādhā al-dirham bi madīnat Arzanjān bi tārīkh’, continued in the central circle, ‘sana / sabʿīn wa / khamsa / miʾa’ (‘This dirham was struck in the city of Erzincan in the year 570’ in Arabic). Album 1892.2. Very rare. Deposits and scratches, otherwise, very fine.


Marco Polo visited Arzanjan (modern Erzincan) only five year before this coin was issued, reporting that the 'the people [of Arzanjan] are Armenians', and that Arzanjan was the 'noblest of cities' and the See of an Armenian Archbishop.