A Bedouin Amīr in Fāṭimid Ṭabariyya: The Earliest Numayrid Coin Excavated in Tiberias

Abstract

The fifth century AH/eleventh century CE in Shām and the Jazīra was a period of a receding
monetary economy, and drastically shrinking number of produced coins. Contemporary legal
texts supported by archaeologically provenanced coin finds suggested that the reduced highly
alloyed black dirhams were only circulating in a narrow region of origin. It came therefore as
a surprise to find the earliest Numayrid dirham far from its supposed mint in Ḥarrān (modern
Altınbaşak, Şanlıurfa Province, Turkey) in an excavation in Tiberias. The coin also establishes
a terminus post quem for a disputed dating of the particular site.