Classical Numismatic Group, LLC
Islamic Auction 1 25 May 2022
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Umayyad Caliphate. temp. al-Walid I ibn 'Abd al-Malik. AH 86-96 / AD 705-715. AR Dirham (28.5mm, 2.50g, 4h). Albanaq (or al-Niq) mint. Dated AH 89 / AD 707/8. Klat 649 (same reverse die); Album p. 40 (RRR); Bates, M.L., 'The Dirham Mint of the Northern Provinces of the Umayyad Caliphate,' Armenian Numismatic Journal XV (1989), pp. 89-109. Minor corrosion in periphery. EF. Extremely rare.
Formerly read as 'al-Niq' but now tentatively interpreted as 'Albanaq' this is one of the rarest Umayyad dirham mints. However, it is possible to draw some conclusions about the mint's likely location on the basis of the date and calligraphy. Between AH 84 and 90, dirham minting was almost completely centralised at the capital, Damascus, and the newly-founded mint-town of Wasit. Virtually all exceptions belong to a group of dirhams struck at mints in the Umayyad North, including Arran, Tiflis and Harran. These all exhibit the distinctive, rounded calligraphy characteristic of Damascus, and also all omit the preposition fi from the mint/date formula in the obverse margin, which dirham mints in Iraq and the East retain until the late 90s. This coin shares these characteristics, leading Bates and others to place 'al-Niq' somewhere in the Umayyad North (Bates, op. cit., p. 103), even though the mint-name still defied interpretation. More recently, however, Album has proposed the reading 'Albanaq', tentatively adopted here, which he explained as being 'probably equivalent to Alvank (Albania) in the Caucasus, not to be confused with Albania in southeastern Europe' (Album p. 40, note 74).
Formerly read as 'al-Niq' but now tentatively interpreted as 'Albanaq' this is one of the rarest Umayyad dirham mints. However, it is possible to draw some conclusions about the mint's likely location on the basis of the date and calligraphy. Between AH 84 and 90, dirham minting was almost completely centralised at the capital, Damascus, and the newly-founded mint-town of Wasit. Virtually all exceptions belong to a group of dirhams struck at mints in the Umayyad North, including Arran, Tiflis and Harran. These all exhibit the distinctive, rounded calligraphy characteristic of Damascus, and also all omit the preposition fi from the mint/date formula in the obverse margin, which dirham mints in Iraq and the East retain until the late 90s. This coin shares these characteristics, leading Bates and others to place 'al-Niq' somewhere in the Umayyad North (Bates, op. cit., p. 103), even though the mint-name still defied interpretation. More recently, however, Album has proposed the reading 'Albanaq', tentatively adopted here, which he explained as being 'probably equivalent to Alvank (Albania) in the Caucasus, not to be confused with Albania in southeastern Europe' (Album p. 40, note 74).