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Introduction
During the last ten years or so
there have been some discussions about an Ottoman copper coin with
an enigmatic legend, as to whether this represents the coin's
denomination or the name of its mint. The coin concerned is known
from perhaps half a dozen specimens present in a few collections.
It shows distinct similarities with 16th - 17th century (10th -
11th century AH) Ottoman copper coins from the Yemen and is
therefore thought to originate from that part of the world. As it
is unknown for any pre-19th century Ottoman coin to have its
denomination or value shown as part of its inscription, it may be
safely assumed that the inscription on this particular coin
represents its mint name, and not its denomination. Having said
that, this then leaves us with the identification of the mint name
of these coins.
The Coin
The legend in Arabic script on the
coin's obverse from the top downwards shows the usual dhuriba
(it was struck), where the letter ba forms a horizontally
drawn-out line below the letters dha and ra;
(dha is used to decribe the
Arabic letter that is normally transcribed by a d with a dot below
it, which I cannot do in my computer) below this horizontal
line of the letter ba there are the naturally unconnected
letters: dal-wau-alif-ra-ya; below these letters is the
word sanah (year) again in a horizontally drawn-out line,
below which there is the year 974, the year of Sultan Selim
II's accession.
The coin's reverse shows a
hexagram of two superimposed triangles with dots and accents, very
similar to the reverse of the large Ottoman copper coins from
Malhaz in the Yemen which, incidentally, show the same year.1)
Thus the coins under discussion look like a fraction of the Malhaz
coin. See illustrations Fig. 1-5.
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