ABBASID, AL-MU‘TAMID (256-279h)
Dirham, Adana 273h
Obverse: Single marginal inscription containing mint and date; annulets oo o oo o oo o around
Weight: 2.88g
Cleaned, and has also been straightened with some weakness on both sides, otherwise very fine or better and of the highest rarity, apparently unpublished £1,200-1,500
According to Diler, the only appearance of Adana in the coinage record occurred in 193h when silver and copper issues were struck there. On the present specimen the mint-name is written with two alifs as Ādāna.
With its single obverse margin, rather than the standard double margin seen on virtually all Abbasid dirhams of this period, it is tempting to view this coin as a special issue, perhaps made for presentation and to mark a particular event. The historian al-Tabari does indeed record that Yazaman b. Khadim, governor of Tarsus, was engaged in military campaigns on land against the Byzantines at about this time, although his entries for the years 273h and 274h are frustratingly brief. Yazaman evidently won a notable victory at a place which our sources call Maskanayn, an unidentified location whose name is perhaps to be interpreted at ‘the two settlements.’ Adana is no more than thirty miles from Tarsus, and while it is not possible to prove that this particular raid is directly connected with the striking of this unrecorded coin, it is clear that there was fighting between Muslims and Byzantines close to Adana at the time it was produced.
