ISLAMIC, Anatolia & al-Jazira (Post-Seljuk). Artuqids (Mardin). Najm al-Din Alpi, AH 547-572 / AD 1152-1176. Dirham (Bronze, 32 mm, 17.16 g, 10 h), without mint and date. Diademed and draped busts of Antiochos VII facing each other; above, Alpi’s title ‘Najm al-Dīn’ (in Arabic); below, ‘Malik Diyārbakr’ (‘King of Diyarbakr’ (in Arabic); to lower left, tamgha. Rev. On the left, Romanus III standing facing, wearing crown with pendilia and loros, holding globus cruciger in his left hand; on the right, the Virgin, wearing robes and maphorion, crowning the emperor with her right hand; around, genealogy of Alpi as ‘Abū al-Muẓaffar Alpī Timurtāsh ibn Īl Ghāzī ibn Artuq’ (in Arabic). Spengler & Sayles 28. A beautiful example with exceptional portraits. About extremely fine.

That Artuqid artists drew upon classical motifs for their coinage is well established (see Lot 349 above). This particular piece reveals that, despite their precision, these designs were at times interpreted with remarkable freedom: the well-known portrait of Antiochos VII is here transformed into a double portrait, evoking Roman imperial medallions and provincial issues. The reverse, adapted from a histamenon of the Byzantine emperor Romanos III Argyros - depicting the emperor being crowned by the Virgin Mary - further underscores the eclecticism of these compositions. Not only were motifs separated by nearly twelve centuries freely combined, but political and religious sensitivities appear to have played little, if any, role. This suggests that, while the visual models were reproduced with great care, their original iconographic significance was likely not fully understood