AE Fals; 19 mm, 2.89 g, Halab mint; AH 755/ CE 1354
Description of the piece
below from ANS Digital
Library: Coinage of the Mamlūk Sultans of Egypt and Syria (numismatics.org)
Balog Mamluk 338
Copper
ALEPPO, 755 H.
338. Border: circular line.
Field
divided by two horizontal lines into three segments.
Upper
segment: سنة خمس
Central
segment: الملك الصالح
Lower
segment: وخمسين بحلب
Border:
circle of scrolls (or on some specimens a circular cable?) between two circular
lines.
In
center: bird walking to right, head turned straight back. Above the bird's
back, swan-like body, so far unidentified.
On top
of the name, الصالح, is an ornament; on some specimens it is: الصالح ω (P
M–5823), on others: الصالح (L 890, b and L 940).
L 890,b (18) Plate XIII, 338a; 940 (18, 2.80). P M–5823 (20) Plate XIII, 338. BMC 542 (20); 543 (21); 543,a. BM F–5–70–7–15980. Lagumina p. 96 no. 6. Blau no. 300 a, b. Wien 774. ANS, three specimens: (21, 2.94); (19, 2.56); (19, 2.14). Thorburn. Balog, three specimens: (20, 2.99); (20); (20).
Only a
few specimens were known to Lavoix, who attributed them to al-Ṣāliḥ Ḥājji, but
read the mint-name Aleppo correctly: Lane-Poole ascribed the coin to al-Ṣāliḥ
Isma'īl and read the upper and lower segments as: قسيم محمد and ضر بحلب.
We
have now several fulūs of this issue, on which the mint,
Aleppo, and the date, 755 H., are clear. There can be no doubt about the
attribution to al-Ṣāliḥ Ṣāliḥ.
The
heraldic bird of the reverse has been described as a duck, to which —
especially on poorly preserved specimens — it has a certain resemblance. Mayer,
in his Saracenic Heraldry (p. 7 and notes p. 3, 10 and 26),
points out, however, that there is no evidence that the duck was ever used as
heraldic emblem on a Mamlūk blazon.
On
closer examination of the coins, the bird does not resemble a duck but rather
any walking bird with short legs, and could be an eagle, a raven or even a
sparrow. Until we have further clearer evidence, we should like to suggest the
eagle.
