Publisher's Synopsis
This volume (the second to be published in the series) contains nearly 1800 coins of the 13th-19th centuries from Iran, Afghanistan and neighbouring lands. It covers the following dynasties: Ilkhanid, Timürid, Qara Quyunlu, Aq Quyunlu, Safavid, Qaja, Durrãni and Barakzäy. They are arranged by mint, and chronologically with mints, six maps and index of names and titles. The introduction offers not only a guide to the use of the catalogue, but also sets out an agenda for the study of the monetary history of the period. Late medieval Iranian coinage offers the historian the earliest opportunity to examine the relationship between coinage issue in the Islamic world and the monetary policies which underlie them. The collections which contribute to this volume are all housed in the Heberden Coin Room, Ashmolean Museum. The most important of these is undoubtedly that part of the Thorburn collection which was acquired by the Coin Room in 1966. The Ashmolean collection began in the late 17th century but included few Islamic coins until the acquisition of the J.B. Elliott collection in 1859. Since then the collection of Islamic coins has grown to more than 9000 pieces, not including the Ottoman Empire, the Muslim states of India or modern machine-struck coinage. This catalogue is the second in a projected series of ten volumes, covering the Ashmolean's permanent collection of Islamic coins and that of Samir Shamma, one of the finest private collections of Islamic coins ever formed in the Middle East.
