ISLAMIC, Anatolia & al-Jazira (Post-Seljuk). Mengüjekids (Erzincan & Kermakh). Fakhr al-Din Bahram Shah, AH 560-622 / AD 1165-1225. Dirham (Bronze, 20 mm, 4.22 g, 11 h), Arzanjan (Erzincan), AH 570 = 1174/5. Citing the ruler’s full titulature in the margin, ‘[Fakhr al-Dunyā wa al-D]īn Abu’l-Muẓaffar [Bahrāmshāh 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 Arzan[jān 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. Some corrosion
, otherwise, very fine.
From a European collection, formed before 2005.
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.
