Umayyad Caliphate, Silver coinage. AR Dirham (25.9mm, 2.45 g, 10h). Ardashir Khurra mint. Dated AH 84 (AD 703). Good Fine/Fine, toned.

Islamic Auction 15 – Session One
Lot: 11.
Closing Date: Oct 28 2026 11:00 GMT

Post-Reform Umayyad, Silver

Estimate: $ 3 000

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Umayyad Caliphate, Silver coinage. AR Dirham (25.9mm, 2.45 g, 10h). Ardashir Khurra mint. Dated AH 84 (AD 703). Obverse margin reads bism Allah duriba hadha al-dawham (!) bi-al-Darashǐr (!) Khurra fi alba‘ (!)) wa thamanin. Klat 31 (as AH 80), 33. Good Fine/Fine, toned. Extremely rare.

Ex Morton & Eden 79 (21 April 2016), lot 27.

The obverse marginal legend on this coin, which contains the mint-name and date, displays a number of remarkable spelling errors. Firstly, the word dirham is misspelled as dawham with a waw instead of a ra as the second letter. Secondly, ‘Ardashīr’ in the mint-name is misspelled ‘Al-Darshǐr’. It has a lam instead of a ra as the second letter, and r-sh-r instead of sh-ī-r at the end of the word. Sanat is omitted, and a lam again replaces a ra in the unit of the date, which therefore reads alba‘ instead of arba‘.

It is not surprising that this should have caused confusion in the past. Klat correctly read the date on one specimen as AH 84, but followed Walker in interpreting the year on a similar coin as AH 80. Walker proposed that the word read as alba‘, ‘4’, was a blundered version of sanat, but this does not account for the wa before thamanin, which shows that another number should precede the decade of the date.

It is notable that many of the spelling errors noted here involve a confusion between the letters ‘l’ and ‘r’, which are written similarly in Pahlawi but differently in Arabic. All known dirhams from Ardashir Khurra dated AH 84 appear to have the same mistakes in the obverse margin, even though at least three different dies are now known for the issue.

It appears that the abbreviated form ‘Ard’ was used for Ardashir Khurra on dirhams struck before AH 83, with examples now known dated AH 79, 81 and 82 (Klat 29-30). This further supports the view that the date on this coin should be read as AH 84 rather than AH 80, since it includes the full mint-name rather than the abbreviation used in previous years

The final winners of all lots in Session One of CNG Islamic Auction 15 will be determined during the live sale held on 28 October 2026.

Session Two of CNG Islamic Auction 15, a timed online sale, will be held on Thursday, 29 October 2026, beginning at 2:00 PM GMT.



Winning bids are subject to a 22.5% buyer's fee for bids placed on this website and in person at the public auction, 25% for all others.

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