Standing Caliph fals, minted from 74-77 = 693-697

[Pellinore]

Recently I bought some of these coins, they are the same type, slightly different however, and although I have the Goodwin introduction to Arab-Byzantine Coinage before my very nose (a pdf from Academia) I fail to identify the mints. Hims? Halab?

The obverse shows a man that one thinks is drawing his sword, the reverse is an imitation of the Byzantine cross-on-steps, but the cross itself is replaced by a circle divided in two halves, or a Greek letter phi. 

The first coin is pretty broad and looks like an overstrike. I like it because the flan is wide enough to accomodate the whole die, even including the pearl rim. 23 mm, 3.69 g.



The second coin has less text, it is smaller, but clear enough and its patina is not orange but grey, it looks a bit more natural. 19 mm, 2.59 g.



In this third coin, the man with the sword is a bit more detailed with his striped or chequered long coat. A bit smaller but the heaviest of the four, with a dumpy thick fabric. 17.5 mm, 3.89 g.



And the last one, thin again, a rather oval flan with a doubtful patina, still, the coin underneath it looks real enough. This one is a bit 'barbarous' in my eyes. 23 x 19 mm, 3.37 g.



What do you think? And what are the mints?

-- Paul

[THCoins]

No references at hand. But in your first one, to the right of the "cross", written downward i think is the mintname bi-Hims, so Emesa.
In general this Zeno category.

[Pellinore]

Thanks! I think the three first coins are all from Hims. I thought the fourth from Halab?

-- Paul

[Pellinore]

By the way, I came across two theories about the nature of the phi-formed thing that replaces the cross on the steps.

Instead of just a sort of anti-cross, it was suggested here (on Academia, a review of the book of Clive Foss: Arab-Byzantine Coins. An Introduction, with a catalogue of the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, 2008), that the 'pole on steps' could point to the symbol "Qutb", the pole of the faith, personified by the caliph. The circle stands for the world, and the pole in the middle is the unifying force of the faith, wielded by the caliph.

There's also a suggestion, though, in the same book and its review, that the pole-on-steps stands for the Greek letter φ as abbreviation of φῶς = light, substitutes the cross. Naturally, the first idea suggests a population converted to Islam, and the second a Greek people without reference to a special faith. And we have to realize these coins are from Roman Syria, or the Byzantine Diocese of the East, or Bilad-as-Sham -- Greek territory conquered by the Sasanians around 610, wrested from them in 628, and only about eight years later conquered by the Rashidun caliphate. 

-- Paul

[Pellinore]

And on CNG I found a slightly better version of my first coin with all text clearly readable.

-- Paul

[THCoins]

Interesting background about the "cross" symbol. I never had looked into that.
Tried to look better into your different specimen;
On your third one, because of what is visible to the left of the cross, i would go for a Tanukh type: see Zeno.

[Pellinore]

Tanukh, very interesting, when you read the Wikipedia article 'Tanukhids', a tribe that were known in the first millennium AD in what's now Syria and Jordan, in the Northwest Arabic desert. According to the article, they fought the Palmyrene Empire of Zenobia in the third century AD, they were staunch Christians from the 4th to 8th centuries, when the caliph al-Mahdi forced them to convert to Islam. This coin was minted almost a century before this conversion. Still, that standing caliph is a fiercely Islamic motif.

-- Paul