ISLAMIC, Anatolia & al-Jazira (Post-Seljuk). Mengüjekids (Erzincan & Kermakh). Fakhr al-Din Bahram Shah, AH 560-622 / AD 1165-1225. Dirham (Bronze, 23 mm, 4.33 g, 9 h), Arzanjan (Erzincan), AH 579 = AD 1183/4. Head with long hair to left within a hexagon; to left and right, ‘Fakhr – al-Din’ (‘Fakhr al-Din’ in Arabic); in the margin, ‘ḍuriba bi Arzanjān fī sana tisʿ sabʿ[īn khamsa] miʾa’ (‘Struck in Arzanjan in the year 579’ in Arabic).
Rev. Within a square, ‘malik al-umarā / shāh ghāzī / Bahrāmshāh’ (‘King of amirs, the holy warrior king, Bahramshah’ in Arabic); in the margin, ‘ibn Dāwūd / nāṣir / [amīr al-muʾ/minīn]’ (‘son of Daʾud, helper of the Commander of the Believers’ in Arabic). Album 1892.3. Rare. Light areas of weakness and with minor deposits
, 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.
