Seljuk Mints and Silver Mines

Rudi Paul LINDNER 363

SELJUK MINTS AND SILVER MINES

“∞In his lands the Sultan possesses six, or according to some, ten silver mines, of which any one each day produces the value of ten thousand dirhems.∞” Simon of Saint Quentin1

T he exploitation and use of Asia Minor’s mineral resources during the Middle Ages have interested scholars for a number of years, and here I present some new evidence concerning silver.2 In the past, it has been customary to search literary sources, ancient, Byzantine, and Islamic, for their occasional remarks about the mines and their products, and this vein has been productive.3 It has also been possible to offer suggestions on

Rudi Paul LINDNER is professor of history at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA [email protected]

1 Simon of Saint Quentin, Histoire des Tartares, ed. Jean Richard (Paris, 1965), 68. Compare the account of the Seljuk sultan’s gold amphorae recounted by Joinville∞: Rudi Paul LINDNER, “∞The Challenge of Qilich Arslan IV,∞” in Dickran K. Kouymjian, ed., Near Eastern Numismatics, Iconography, Epigraphy and History, Studies in Honor of George C. Miles (Beirut, 1974), p. 416. 2 Among recent works are Klaus-Peter MATSCHKE, “∞Mining,∞” in A.E. Laiou, ed., The Economic History of Byzantium, from the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century, vol. 1 (Wash- ington, D.C., 2002), p. 115-120, and Brigitte PITARAKIS, “∞Mines anatoliennes exploitées par les Byzantins∞: Recherches récentes,∞” Revue numismatique 153 (1998), p. 141-185. I wrote this article for Stephen Album, my sınıfda≥ at the University of California, Berkeley. 3 See for example S. VRYONIS, Jr., “∞The Question of the Byzantine Mines,∞” Speculum 37 (1962), p. 1-17∞; Faruk SÜMER, “∞Selçuklular devrinde Türkiye’de madenler,∞” Türklük ara≥tırmaları dergisi 4(1988), p. 159-164, esp. 162-163∞; and A.G.C. SAVVIDES, “∞Observa- tions on Mines and Quarries in the Byzantine Empire,∞” Ekklesiastikos Pharos 82∞:2 (2000), p. 130-155, esp. 137-138.

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the basis of surveys on the ground, some of them the result of modern mineralogical fieldwork, others due to the observations of archaeologists searching for the origins of mining in the peninsula.4 These very useful results locate various sources of silver but do not pretend to be exhaustive (the literary materials) or to provide exact dates during which the mines were exploited. The evidence I propose to develop is hard evidence, the surviving thirteenth and early fourteenth century silver coinage of the Seljuks of Rum (and, in part, of the Ilkhanids). The thirteenth century was a “∞silver age∞” in Anatolia, certainly in those areas controlled by the Seljuks. The dirhems or silver coins survive in large numbers, and the purity of the coins is very high throughout the century, especially when compared with the dirhems minted in the Levant during the same period. There is also a mint proliferation whose breadth is unknown in the earlier or later history of Anatolia.5 After 655 H./1257-1258 C.E., there were usually at least ten mints striking dirhems for the Seljuks, and in 699 H./1299-1300 C.E. there were forty-six. Thanks to the traditions of Islamic coinage, the vast majority of these silver coins bear upon them statements of the year in which they were struck and the name of the mint∞; this renders them far more informative than the contemporary Byzantine silver coins. Our concern is with a subset of these Islamic coins, in which the name of the mint also contains, regularly or occasionally, the word “∞ma¨den,∞” mean- ing mine. These coins allow us to put together a list of places at or near which there were working silver mines during a specific period of time. The numismatic evidence that I summarize later in this essay derives from a variety of sources, viz., collections that have afforded me the opportunity to work in their cabinets and catalogues both published and in draft. In particular, I wish to thank the authorities of the American Numismatic Society, Dumbarton Oaks, the British Museum, the Istanbul Arkeoloji Müzeleri, the Yapı ve Kredi Bankası (Istanbul), and I also wish to thank Mr. Stephen Album, who has entrusted me with material from his own and other collections for study, as well as some invaluable data from hoards.6 I have also benefited greatly from correspondence with collectors and from reading the results of their diligence.7

4 See for example P.S. de JESUS, The Development of Prehistoric Mining and Metal- lurgy in Anatolia (Oxford, 1980), and K. Aslıhan YENER, “∞Byzantine Silver Mines∞: An Archaeometallurgy Project in Turkey,∞” in Susan A. Boyd and Maria M. Mango, eds., Ecclesiastical Silver Plate in Sixth-Century Byzantium (Washington, 1992), p. 155-168. 5 Rudi Paul LINDNER, Explorations in Ottoman Prehistory (Ann Arbor, 2007), 88-90, and figure 3 on p. 92. 6 In addition to Stephen Album I would also like to thank John Masson Smith, Jr., the late George C. Miles, Michael Bates, the late Nicholas Lowick, Lutz Ilisch, the late Ibra- him and Cevriye Artuk, the late Ibrahim Tözen, and both Nezih and Tunçay Aykut. 7 In addition to Stephen Album, who has performed miracles in salvaging coins and hoards from the melting pot, I wish to thank J.C. Hinrichs, the late Cüneyt Ölçer, and I am especially grateful for the writings of members of the Turkish Numismatic Society, among whom I wish to mention Celil Ender and the late Ömer Diler.

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Let us now take a look at a list of such mints. Such exercises are by nature preliminary, pending the appearance of further examples as hoards surface and individual items come on the market. I would certainly expect the list of dates for any given mint to grow a bit, and I also expect both that the number of mints may increase in response to the growth of collections and the maturity of the market, and that the number of mints may decrease slightly as a better reading of a mint name is published. However, what follows is the result of some forty years of interest, if not dogged diligence. Each of the mints has the word “∞ma¨den∞” before it to indicate that at least some of the coins of this mint bear the term as part of the mint name. Following the mint name is a list of the Hijri years for which silver dirhems are attested, up through the early fourteenth century, when numerous mints struck under the name (if not the authority) of the reigning Ilkhan. For much of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, the Hijri years almost coincide with the C.E. dates.

Mints Striking Coins in the Seljuk Sultan’s Name Ma‘den 655, 660-661, 680, 687-688 [Ma¨den] Bayburt 677, 682, 686-688, 690, 692 Ma‘den Bazar 688 [Ma‘den] Durmu≥ 688 [Ma‘den] Gümü≥ 657-662, 664-668, 672-673, 676, 678, 680, 683, 686 [Ma‘den] Gümü≥ Bazar 655-668, 670-692 [Ma‘den] Lu’lu’e 648, 651, 656, 658, 660-688, 690-692, 697 [Ma‘den] Samasur 691-693, 697, 702 [Ma‘den] Sarukavak 681, 686-688, 691, 699-701 [Ma‘den] Sarus 657-664, 666-671, 676 [Ma‘den] ≤ehir 655, 657-659, 663, 665-667, 670-671, 674, 677, 684- 687, 691, 699-700

Mints Striking Coins in the Ilkhan’s Name Ma‘den 698-699, 713-714, 719-721, 728-743, 746-748, 750, 753, 757 [Ma‘den] Bayburt 697, 699, 717-741 [Ma‘den] Gölbazar 722-723 [Ma‘den] Gümü≥bazar 696-697, 699-709, 711-719, 722-724, 726-730, 732- 733, 735 [Ma‘den] Lu’lu’e 697-710, 719-723, 729, 732 [Ma‘den] Samasur 699, 701, 704-706, 708, 710-711, 714-718, 720-727, 729, 731, 738, 741 [Ma‘den] Sandıqlu No date but reign of Ghazan [Ma‘den] ≤ehir 699, 706, 714, 716 I would like, first, to point out that in the second listing of mints at or near mines, the mint authority, after the first year or two of the fourteenth century, may well not be that of the Ilkhan but that of the local “∞Turco-

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man∞” principality. The concern here is to demonstrate both that there were a number of locations where silver was mined in Anatolia during this era and also that some of the mines were productive of silver to be struck into coins for a very long period of time. Thus, in the discussion of a “∞silver famine∞” in the Near East during the High Middle Ages, it is important to exclude Anatolia from consideration, for silver consumers were very well fed from peninsular sources. Having established that there were a number of silver mines in opera- tion for long periods of time in the period from 1240 to 1320, it is also important to recall that these dirhems were struck with a very high silver content. For example, a large hoard of Rum Seljuk and Ilkhanid dirhems surfaced in Kütahya and was made available for study at The University of Michigan.8 One sample of 230 coins from the hoard, which appears to have been deposited no later than 1301, was subjected to non-destructive neutron activation analysis. The median silver content of this sample was 95%, and the mode was 97%∞: the median was degraded by a few out- liers. Either of these percentages is fifteen to twenty percent higher than that determined from similar studies of dirhems from the Mamluk domains at the same era.9 I would like to note as well that the years run- ning up to 1301 were difficult ones, as the Seljuks “∞loitered with intent to govern∞” while Mongol and nomad pressures bent and broke the cen- tral political structures. While the evidence allows us to draw conclusions about the amount of silver mining that took place in late Rum Seljuk and Ilkhanid Anatolia, the precise locations of the mines is another matter altogether. In some cases I confess to being at a complete loss. When further hoard evidence becomes available, combined with the results of modern mineralogical surveys, it should become easier to suggest the locations of the more problematic mints. However, for the moment, it may be appropriate to offer some suggestions about the location of these mints, based upon our present knowledge∞; it may also be wise to point out those cases for which our knowledge seems less secure than what tradition claims.

Ma‘den∞: This name, “∞mine,∞” may hide more than one mint. Comparison of known examples in detail may be able to determine how many mints bore this name.

8 I owe the opportunity to study this hoard to Stephen Album. 9 I thank Professor Adon A. Gordus for having performed the analysis, and I thank the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies and the Michigan Phoenix Project for grants in support of the project. A small sample of the coins of Cilician Armenia, undated but minted in the names of thirteenth century rulers, had an average silver content, analyzed by x-ray fluorescence, of 92%. About half of the thirty-four coins analyzed may have been produced from silver mined at Loulon∞: Levon A. SARYAN, “∞Chemical Compo- sition of Armenian Coins,∞” Armenian Numismatic Journal 12 (1986), 25, building on D.M. METCALF, “∞The Alloy of the Thirteenth-Century Silver Coinage of Cilician Arme- nia,∞” Armenian Numismatic Journal 4 (1978), p. 57-64.

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[Ma¨den] Bayburt∞: The mines at Bayburt are already attested from literary sources, but the extent of the output, for more than a decade in the late Rum Seljuk and a generation during the later Ilkhanid era, has not been so clear until now. Coins from this mint are attested for separate months in the year 720 H, a suggestion of increased output.10 The precise location of the mines near Bayburt may be at the village of Gümü≥akar/Maden Dere.11 Ma‘den Bazar∞: The location of this mint is unknown. [Ma‘den] Durmu≥∞: Also unknown, it is possible that this mint name has been misread. [Ma‘den] Gölbazar∞: This settlement is east-northeast of Bilecik, on the road to Mudurnu. [Ma‘den] Gümü≥∞: It is asserted that this mint was at or near Gümü≥ Hacı Köy, which joins two villages, Gümü≥ and Hacı Köy, some twenty kilometers distant from Merzifon, in Amasya province.12 Since there is a “∞Darphane Cami∞” and also a “∞Maden Cami∞” (a former Chris- tian church∞?) in the town (but both are nineteenth century founda- tions), there may be reason for the identification. There seems little doubt that the silver mines here were exploited in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.13 [Ma‘den] Gümü≥ Bazar∞: Supposed to be the same as the previous mint. [Ma‘den] Lu’lu’e∞: Lu’lu’e is the Byzantine and Cilician Armenian out- post of Loulon, and its location is well known, on the northern slopes of the Taurus, southwest of Faustinopolis, east of the present Ulukı≥la, some kilometers north of the Cilician Gates. The fortifications are well known for their role in Byzantine history as the site of one of the signal stations linking the frontier with Constantinople. The fortifications were in the power of the Rum Seljuks after the second decade of the thirteenth century. The mines themselves were in all probability in the nearby Bulgar Maden district, about twenty kilometers south-southwest.14 One measure of the product of the mines is the survival of coins dated to specific months (Shawwal, Sha‘ban, and Ramadan 690).15 The Ilkhanids felt enough concern about Loulon and the mines to station a garrison there.16

10 I owe this information to Stephen Album∞: the coins are dated Muharrem and Safer 720. 11 PITARAKIS, “∞Mines anatoliennes,∞” p. 165. 12 Ahmed TEVHID, Müze-i Hümayun [Istanbul Arkeoloji Müzeleri], Meskukat-i Kadim- i Islamiye Katalogları, vol. 4 (Istanbul, 1321), 83, p. 287. Tevhid offered no reason for the identification. 13 PITARAKIS, “∞Mines anatoliennes,∞” p. 158-160. 14 Friedrich HILD and Marcell RESTLE, Kappadokien (Vienna, 1981 [Tabula Imperii Byz- antini 2∞; Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse, Denkschriften 149]), 159, 223-224∞; cf. PITARAKIS, “∞Mines anatoliennes,∞” p. 169-170. 15 I owe this information to Stephen Album. 16 See Ahmet Zeki VELIDI TOGAN, “∞Economic Conditions in Anatolia in the Mongol Period,∞” translated by Gary Leiser, Annales Islamologiques 25 (1990), p. 226 n. 53. This is an improvement over the original, published in 1931.

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[Ma‘den] Samasur∞: Due east of Bingöl (Çapakçur) lies a small town now named Ekinyolu, formerly called Simsor, and this is probably Samasur.17 There are former silver mines in the neighborhood.18 [Ma‘den] Sandıqlu∞: This is near Sandıklı, between U≥ak and Bolvadin. [Ma‘den] Sarukavak∞: On the basis of hoard evidence, one might expect this mint to be located in southwest Anatolia. Sarukavak (“∞yellow poplar∞”) is not a rare place name, however, and even a cursory search reveals settlements of this name near U≥ak, Mente≥e, and Antalya, none of which appears to have had any silver deposits in the vicinity. [Ma‘den] Sarus∞: This appears to be Sarız, east-southeast of Kayseri on the upper reaches of the Göksu. Silver mining is attested here in the thirteenth century.19 [Ma‘den] ≤ehir∞: The best-known settlement with this name is located near Konya. Silver mining activity is recorded in the neighborhood.20

Why was there so much mint activity∞? The first point to bear in mind is that there had been an economic expansion in Anatolia, beginning early in the thirteenth century, supported in part by the Seljuks obtaining maritime outlets in the north, at Sinope, and on the Mediterranean, at Antalya. Second, helping with the growth of long-distance trade was a network of caravansarays, a map of which outlines routes into the peninsula from north and south as well as across, from northwest to east and southeast.21 Constructing and maintaining these hans required a fair amount of money. Beyond these adjuncts to trade, third, were expensive building programs in the cities, costly both in fabric and decoration.22 These programs reflect the growth of a money economy. And perhaps even more effective in promoting silver mining and dirhem coining was the sizable tribute owed the Mongols after 1243, even if the full amounts were neither fully nor regularly paid.23 In fact, this tribute was so large, and the supplies of silver in Ilkhanid Iran so questionable, that one might wonder whether a fair amount of the Ilkhanid silver coinage, exemplary in volume and quality, consists of Anatolian bullion.

17 Cf. the Tevhid catalogue, p. 337. 18 Vital CUINET, La Turquie d’Asie, vol. 2 (Paris, 1892), p. 625, 627. 19 Faruk SÜMER, Yabanlu Pazarı (Istanbul, 1985), p. 77 n. 33, p. 78 n. 34. 20 Ismail GHALIB, Tekvim-i Meskukat-i Selcukiye (Istanbul, 1309), xix n.1. 21 The classic treatment remains Kurt ERDMANN, Das anatolische Karavansaray des 13. Jahrhunderts, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1961-1976). 22 See in general Howard CRANE, “∞Notes on Saldjuk Architectural Patronage in Thir- teenth Century Anatolia,∞” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 36 (1993), 1-57, and Michael MEINECKE, Fayencedekorationen Seldchukischer Sakralbauten in Kleinasien, two vols. (Tübingen, 1976). 23 For a discussion of the various amounts listed in the sources, see Osman TURAN, Selçuklular zamanında Türkiye (Istanbul, 1971), p. 445-446∞; cf. TOGAN, “∞Economic Con- ditions,∞” p. 229-231, for a remarkably sanguine view of the economic impact of Mongol domination.

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The purpose of this study has been to highlight the number of silver mines active in Seljuk and Mongol Anatolia, to present evidence for the long duration of mining and minting activity at a number of sites, and to suggest (given the fineness of the coinage and the amount of it still extant) the considerable volume of both mining and minting during the later thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. This contribution to the economic history of the peninsula may further our understanding of the flourishing of construction, long-distance and regional trade, and political movements (such as the revolts of the Mongol governors) during a century of fascinating cultural change.

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ILL. 1. Coin of Sultan Mes’ud II, dated 68[2], struck at Ma’den Lu’lu’e.

ILL. 2. Coin of Sultan Kilic Arslan IV, dated 663, struck at Ma’densehir. Photographs published by courtesy of Professor Mehmet Eti.

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Rudi Paul LINDNER, Seljuk Mints and Silver Mines

The silver coinage of Seljuk and Ilkhanid Anatolia in the 13th and 14th centuries is well known for its purity, the number of mints, and the variety of designs. The coinage also suggests a remarkable spread of silver mining in the peninsula. This short essay contains a list of the Seljuk and Ilkhanid mints located at or near silver mines, an attempt at locating some of those mines, and an indication of the range of years during which silver dirhems were struck at those locations. The varied and voluminous mint output of these mines, unknown before or after this period, throws light on the economic and architectural expansion of the era.

Rudi Paul LINDNER, Lieux de frappe des monnaies seldjoukides et mines d’argent

La monnaie en argent de l’Anatolie seldjoukide et ilkhanide des XIIIe et XIVe siècles est bien connue pour sa pureté, le nombre des lieux de frappe, et la variété des motifs. La monnaie suggère aussi une expansion remarquable de l’exploitation minière de l’argent dans la péninsule. Ce court essai contient une liste des lieux de frappe des monnaies seldjoukides et ilkhanides trouvés dans ou près des mines d’argent, une tentative pour localiser certaines de ces mines, et un tableau des années pendant lesquelles les dirhams d’argent ont été frappés dans ces endroits. La production d’argent variée et abondante dans ces mines, inconnue auparavant ou après cette période, apporte des éclairages sur l’expansion économique et architecturale de l’époque.

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