RESOURCESSumer 25 (1969): 127-29, notes important evidence that the Sasanians
struck at least some gold coins. I. Salman's "Coins Presented to the
Gulbenkian Museum," Sumer 29 (1973): 101-10, includes several
late Sasanian and post-reform Islamic coins.
Coins can supply many kinds of information. The images on coins
provide evidence for official symbolism as shown by V. G. Loukonin's
"Monnaie d' Ardachir I et l'art officiel sassanide," Iranica Antiqua 8
(1968): 106-17. Discussions of the astrological significance of the stars
and crescents on Sasanian coins go back at least to E. Drouin's "Les
symbols astrologiques sur les monnaies de la Perse, "La Gazette nu-
mismatique 5 (Brussels, 1901): 71-74, 87-91. The inscriptions on
coins are official expressions of political and religious ideology, as
shown by O. KHma's "Uber zwei Aufschriften auf den Miinzen des
sassanidischen Konigs Chosroes I," in Festschrift fur Franz Altheim,
I: 140-42. The metallic content of coins can suggest possible sources
of ore and provide evidence of debasement applicable to economic
history. Comparisons between the metallic content of Sasanian and
Islamic dirhams have been made on the basis of the percentage of gold
that occurs naturally in silver ore by J. Bacharach and A. Gordus in
"Studies on the Fineness of Silver Coins," jESHO 11 (1968): 298-
317, and by A. Gordus in "Non-Destructive Analysis of Parthian,
Sasanian, and Umayyad Silver Coins," in D. Koumjian, ed., Near
Eastern Numismatics, Iconography, Epigraphy and History: Studies
in Honor of George C. Miles (Beirut, 1974), pp. 141-62. Greater
precision with the same technique was achieved by P. Meyers et al.,
"Major and Trace Elements in Sasanian Silver," in Archaeological
Chemistry, Advances in Chemistry Series 138 (Washington, D.C., 1974),
pp. 22-33, by using trace elements that occur in silver only in parts
per million or per billion.
Mint-marks occur on Sasanian coins in the form of abbreviations
consisting of two or three consonants which are believed to stand for
the administrative centers where the coins were struck. The problem
has always been how to identify the mint-marks. Since post-reform
Islamic coins have their mint location written out in Kufic script, it
has been assumed that, because of administrative continuity, Sasanian
mint-marks could be identified with known Islamic mints. One of the
first to do this was O. Blau in "Istandara de Meschon. Ein Beitrag zur
Miinztopographie der Sassaniden," Numismatische Zeitschri{t 9 (1877):
273-83. This procedure was also sanctioned by Herzfeld. The first
reasonable listing and proposed identification of Sasanian mint-marks