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Fals - imperial bust
| Issuer | Umayyad Caliphate |
|---|---|
| Year | 661-680 |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Central device consists of a large stylized cursive M, with a delta character attached to the lower legs of the M, surmounted by an eight-pointed star enclosed within two concentric circles. The Greek letters EMI and CHC are divided on either side of the central M. An Arabic inscription appears in the exergue below, following early Umayyad administrative practice of incorporating Arabic legends alongside inherited Byzantine design elements. |
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| Reverse lettering | M EMI CHC |
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| Additional information |
Issued in the decades immediately following the Islamic conquest of Byzantine Syria and Mesopotamia, these early Umayyad copper coins were not a fresh creation but a pragmatic continuation of Byzantine and Sasanian provincial coinage. The caliphate's administration simply kept the existing monetary infrastructure running, adapting or overstriking existing dies rather than engineering a new iconographic program from scratch. The theological prohibition on figural imagery had not yet been enforced in coinage — that break came with Abd al-Malik's sweeping monetary reform of 696–697 AD, which abolished all figural types entirely.
This piece dates to the pre-reform period, before Arabic script displaced inherited imagery wholesale.