CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE EARLY ISLAMIC COIN HOARD

Alan Walmsley

Introduction

Of the thirty-eight coins found during the excavation of Field D, thirty- fi ve come from one hoard of early Islamic copper alloy coins (Arabic: fulūs, singular fals). The hoard was found in Room 605, identifi ed as a kitchen, of Building 600, and comprised six unequal groups (here termed ‘stacks’) totaling twenty-six coins and nine single fi nds. Associ- ated with the hoard were traces of fabric (for the circumstances of the hoard’s discovery, see above, Chapter 3). The three other coins from Field D, all incidental fi nds, have been dealt with earlier (Chapter 12). As the early Islamic hoard constitutes the most signifi cant numismatic fi nd at Tall Jawa, it is dealt with in some detail in this chapter.

Historical Context

In the 690’s AD, the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik (685–705 AD) ini- tiated a major reform of the coinage circulating in the Islamic world. Until these reforms, a mixture of coinage remained current in Syria- Palestine (Arabic: Bilād al-Shām): the gold, silver, and copper issues of the pre-Islamic Byzantine Empire and, less so, Sassanid Empire (before ca. 635 AD); traded Byzantine issues in gold and copper dating to after the Islamic expansion of the 630s; imitations of these produced at a regional level in gold, silver, and copper; and the fi rst attempts at a formal Islamic coinage in gold and copper. Literature on this ‘pre-reform’ Islamic coinage is extensive, with a number of important works appearing recently (Album and Goodwin 2002; Foss 1994–99, 2002, 2004; Goodwin 2005; Goussous 2004; Ilisch 1993, 2003). These studies have demonstrated that a long and complex series of issues commenced in earnest with the establishment of the Umayyad caliph- ate centred on Damascus. As coins from excavations are published, 394 alan walmsley further advances in understanding the development of early Islamic coinage can be expected, which will also offer new perspectives on the development of Islamic governmental institutions in the seventh and eighth centuries AD. Following Abd al-Malik’s reforms, a predominantly imageless coinage in three denominations of gold (dinar), silver (dirham), and copper ( fals) was established. In place of images, post-reform Islamic coins were predominantly epigraphic, with a plain but elegant form of the Arabic script, known as Kūfi c, covering the two faces of a coin with proclama- tions of faith and, sometimes, other texts, such as select extracts from the Qurān, the name of the mint, or a date of issue. The reformed coinage came to dominate the monetary system of the eighth cen- tury, quickly replacing the earlier, experimental, coinage produced in seventh-century Syria-Palestine. Of the three reformed denominations, only gold and silver had any real value in the eighth century; copper mostly served as ‘small change’ in the market place. By the end of the Umayyad period (750 AD), the fals had lost much of its market value as a result of infl ationary pressures caused by a widening exchange rate between the dirham and the dinar.

Catalogue of the Coins

All of the early Islamic coins recovered as a hoard at Tall Jawa belong to the post-reform copper class. That class shows a fair degree of sty- listic variation when compared with the corresponding silver and gold denominations, with mints, dates, the name of the responsible person and/or animals, plants or symbols sometimes included. However, the coin types contained in the Tall Jawa hoard do not refl ect this variety, as they solely belong to two categories notable only for their plainness:

1. coins that include a mint name, and 2. fully anonymous issues, without a mint name, authority or date.

The copper coins of the Tall Jawa hoard, in keeping with Islamic coins generally, were imbued with a legal authority and aesthetic quality through epigraphy, not images. Central to the epigraphic regime on the coins was the proclamation of faith, the shahādah. Usually, this was distributed over the two faces of a coin, known as the ‘fi rst shahādah’