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XVII.

FASTI ARABICI.

VI. Arabian and other Rare Coins from the Collections of Colonel Gosset, Major Trotter, and J. Avent, Esq.

DURING the last two or three years Colonel M. W. E. Gosset, of the 2nd Dorsetshire (54th) Regiment, has taken advantage of a residence at Peshawur, and subsequently at Aden, to collect such coins as came in his way. So successful were his researches, and so favourable his opportunities, that he has brought home a cabinet of some 1500 varieties, many of which are rare, and some apparently unique. The classes represented in this collection are what might be expected from the sites where it was formed. At Peshawur Col. Gosset naturally bought many examples of the chief Indian dynasties, Ghaznawīs, 'Patāns' of Dehli, kings of Jaunpur, Malwa and Gujarāt, Moghul Emperors, and various local issues, besides a series of gold Bactrians, which I must leave to others to describe. At Aden he met with those rare Arabian issues which are often so difficult to decipher and to ascribe to the little-known dynasties that struck them. I do not propose to describe the more ordinary additions made by this collection to the materials which I am gathering for Fasti Arabici. Some new dates or mints among the Ghaznawis, Timūris, and Indian dynasties;

an Amawi dirhem of El-Rayy, A.H. 93 (not in Tiesenhausen); and a silver piece of Ilek Nasr, with inscriptions as Cat. Or. Coins, ii. 432, but struck at Bukhara, A.H. 394, form the chief accessions of this minor order. But there are in Col. Gossett's cabinet a certain number of those unique coins which mark red-letter days in the numismatist's sometimes monotonous calendar, and these deserve to be described in detail. They include eighteen. coins of Arabian dynasties, of which no example has hitherto been found; they establish the existence of an imamate of Dhafar, on which historians and travellers are silent; and they confirm the history of Ibn-el-Athir with regard to two princes of whom no numismatic evidence has before been discovered.

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الله ضرب هذا الدينار بزبيد سنة ستة,(Margin (inner

بسم

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اسحق بن ابرهيم

جاء الحق وزهق الباطل ان الباطل كان زهوقا وننزل Margin

من القرآن ما (sic)

VOL. VII. THIRD SERIES.

UU

Abu-l-Jeysh Ishak was the fourth prince of the BenuZiyad, a dynasty that ruled at Zebid in the Tihama from A.H. 204 to 407. Ishak began to reign before 300 and died in 371, according to Ibn-el-Dayba' (Cat. Or. Coins, V, xxxv-xxxvii). No coin of the Benu-Ziyad has before been published. If there were any doubt as to the date of the present dinar, the name of the Khalif El-Muti' would serve to fix it; but, except the omission of the hundred, the year is clear enough. The verses from the Koran, xvii, 83-4, are characteristic of South Arabian coinage; they occur on a coin in the British Museum (Cat. V, 362, cf. corrig. VII, 103), of which other examples are described below (Nos. 2-4).

2. A. IMAMS OF SA'DA. El-Hādī ilā-l-ḥakk. Şa'da, A.H. 298. As B.M. Cat. Or. Coins, v. 362, with dates!

.2 .xiii . جاء الحق الخ and rev. margin وتسعين ومائتين

3, 3a. N. Same: but the end of obv. margin seems to have

Perhaps . وثلثمانه بين to ومانتين been altered from

the old die was used when a new century was entered upon, and an attempt was made by altering the hundred to show the change of the date.

Obv. of 3. Pl. xiii. 3.

4. N. 'ABBĀSĪ GOVERNOR OF THE YEMEN. Sa'da? A.H. 360.

Obv. area,

لا اله الا

Pl. xiii. 4.

وحده
الله

لا شريك له

بسم الله ضرب هذا الدينر بسعص (؟) سنة ستين وثلثماية Margin

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جاء الحق وزهق الناطل ان الباطل كان زهوقا وننزل,Margin

من الـ (sic)

The India Office collection, now in the British Museum, contains eight gold coins similar to this, struck at Șan'ā, in the names of different 'Abbasi Khalifs during the first half of the third century of the Flight. The present example, by fabric and style of inscriptions (notably rev. margin), evidently belongs to the same class, which represents the local issues of the Khalifate governors of the Yemen. The mint is, unfortunately, obscure, but I believe it stands for , the being put by mistake for, as occasionally happens on Arabic coins. The end of the word is obscure, but it can be no other numeral. The inscription might indeed be read ... mili mi, but for the name of El-Muti', who succeeded to the Khalifate in 334.

5-22. A. IMAM OF DHAFAR. 'Abd-Allah Hamza. Struck at Dhafar, Şa'da, and, at various dates.

These eighteen dirhems present a series of problems, some of which appear at present to be insoluble. They are all identical so far as the obv. and rev. areas are concerned. These curiously crossed inscriptions read uniformly :

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم لا اله الا الله محمد رسول الله,by area

على ولى الله

Obv.

الامام عبد الله بن المنصور بالله امیر المومنين حمزة Rev. area بن سليم

The order of the words, owing to the arrangement in crossed lines in hexagram form, is uncertain; possibly

and the word ;عبد الله بن should follow حمزة بن سليم

سلیمان is written and may perhaps stand for سلیم

but as no other example of a curved final alif occurs on this or similar coins I think this is very improbable. The differences between the eighteen coins are found in the margins. Seven of them have the name of an heir () in the rev. margin, while the remaining eleven have only the following formula arranged in six spaces

ولى العهد

The . النبى رسول الله صلى الله عليه : outside the hexagram

obv. margin in both classes contains the mint and date.

A. Beginning with the eleven coins which have no name of an heir we find the following dates:

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11. XC

Obv. Pl. xiii. 7.

بعد ا بر سنة ( خمس or) عشرة (؟) وسبعمارة .710 or 705

Obv. Pl. xiii. 8.

. (خمسة عشر 15 ,Dhafar .12

13, 14, 15. Dhafar, dates obscure.

B. 1. With name of heir Aḥmad El-Mutawekkil.

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