CYPRUS. Venetian rule, 1489-1571. 9 Bisante (Gold, 19 mm, 3.30 g, 12 h), countermarked on a reformed Ashrafi from Misr from AH 927 = AD 1520/21. Within a circle, ‘Sulṭān Sulaymān Shāh / ibn sulṭān Salīm Shāh / ʿazza naṣruhū ḍuriba fī / …’ (‘Sultan Sulayman Shah son of Sultan Salim Shah. May his victory be honoured! Struck in …’ in Arabic) three countermarks: zigzag / value 9 / issuer mark 1. Rev. Within a circle, traces of ‘ḍārib al-naḍr / ṣāḥib al-ʿizz wa al-naṣr / fī al-barr wa al-baḥr’ (‘Gold striker, owner of glory and victory, in the land and sea’ in Arabic). Album 1317 (host coin). Broome -. Pere -. Pitsillides -. Sultan 9442 (host coin). Apparently unpublished. Slightly off-centered and with minor areas of weakness, otherwise, very fine.



This fascinating coin offers profound insights into the monetary history of 16th-century Cyprus, set against the backdrop of tensions between the Venetians and the Ottoman Empire. The host coin, a Reformed Ashrafi, was the product of an Ottoman currency reform initiated by Sulayman I Qanuni. This reform increased the purity of Egyptian Ashrafis, aligning them more closely with Venetian Ducats to establish them as a standard currency for Mediterranean trade.

However, the true significance of this piece lies in its countermarks. In his groundbreaking 1977 paper, Pitsillides explored the phenomenon of re-coinage in Venetian Cyprus (A.G. Pitsillides: Countermarks on Cypriot and other coins during the Venetian period in Cyprus, in: Cyprus Numismatic Report 8 (1977), pp. 29–38). Around 1518, Cyprus underwent a re-evaluation of circulating currency through countermarking to standardize the diverse array of coins in use. While this process primarily applied to Venetian silver coins and coins from the Lusignan dynasty, it occasionally included Ottoman gold coins as well. Metcalf has analyzed the typical significance of the three countermarks commonly found on these coins, which include:

a) the value in Solidi or Bisante (e.g., '9'),
b) a countermark placed near the edge to prevent clipping (e.g., a 'zigzag' pattern), and
c) an issuer's mark (e.g., '1').

Previously, countermarked Ashrafis with a value of 8 Bisante were the only known examples of this type (Pitsillides, p. 34). However, M. Broome anticipated the existence of Reformed Ashrafis with a higher value mark, such as '9,' which is the case with our piece (M. Broome: Countermarked Islamic Gold Coins in Venetian Cyprus, in: TNC 157 (1997), p. 208). This coin is of exceptional importance to Cypriot numismatics for two reasons. First, it provides evidence that the re-coinage process on Cyprus, previously thought to have concluded by 1518, actually continued until at least 1520. Second, it demonstrates that the Reformed Ashrafis under Suleiman I were accepted as fully valid trade coins in Cyprus and were integrated into the reorganized Venetian monetary system.