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Kirmaneuli Tetri - Manuel I Imitation Western Georgia
| Issuer | Kingdom of Georgia (1010-1490) |
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| Composition | Silver |
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| Obverse description | Full-length frontal figure of the emperor in imperial regalia, holding a labarum in the right hand and an akakia or globus in the left, rendered in the Byzantine hieratic style characteristic of Comnenian coinage. The figure is flanked by degraded Greek letter-forms in the field, derived from the prototype legends of Manuel I Comnenus. The design is a provincial imitation, with schematic, angular rendering of the imperial vestments including a loros, and dotted ornamental details throughout the field. |
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| Reverse description | Frontal standing figure of Saint Eugenius, nimbed and draped in ecclesiastical robes, with hands raised in an orant posture or holding a cross-staff. The saint's name is inscribed in degraded Greek characters to the right of the figure in the field. The execution is in a provincial hammered style, with simplified drapery folds rendered as bold linear strokes, consistent with Western Georgian imitative coinage of the Kirmaneuli tetri series. |
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| Additional information |
Manuel I Comnenus issued his own tetri coinage for Trebizond in the mid-twelfth century, and Georgian workshops almost immediately began producing imitative strikes — a practice that reflected less counterfeiting in any modern legal sense than the simple commercial reality that Trapezuntine silver circulated freely along the eastern Black Sea trade routes into Colchis. Western Georgia, relatively isolated from the Tbilisi-centered monetary administration, relied heavily on such imitations to meet local demand.
Bennett's attribution distinguishes these Kirmaneuli pieces from the Trapezuntine prototypes primarily through subtle metrology and die execution rather than type.