I. Les métaux dans l’ancien monde à la fin du ve siècle

Lombard, Maurice

doi:10.4000/books.editionsehess.276

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“…Three further dirhams minted in Kairouan (modern-day Tunisia) have elevated bismuth and lead isotope ratios consistent with lead-based deposits in Tunisia, particularly in the Nappe zone of northern Tunisia (Figures 4B, S9 & S10) although there is an overlap with less well-studied, geologically related deposits in northern Morocco. Tunisia is not known as a potential source of silver during the Caliphate (Lombard 2001). However, the Kairouan mint continued to produce coins in the late eighth century, after production at al-Abbasiya declined, a pattern that does hint at a separate silver source (Noonan 1986: 151).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is academic consensus that this minting programme stimulated agricultural production, facilitated the monetisation of wages, taxes and market exchange, and promoted international trade with Europe (e.g. Ehrenkreutz 1992; Lombard 2001; Kennedy 2002; Shatzmiller 2013). Yet while the impact of minting and monetisation has been widely discussed, investigations into the sourcing and supply of metal for the minting of silver currency have been more limited.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These scholars have also recognised that new silver mining would have been required to meet the demands of producing such large numbers of fine-silver coinage. There are long-standing historical hypotheses, originating in the written accounts of tenth-century and later Arab geographers, that early Islamic silver mining was focused in Arabia and Central Asia: an area encompassing Khorasan (a historical region of north-east Iran, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan) and Transoxiana (between the Oxus and Jaxartes Rivers; Dunlop 1957; Lombard 2001; Bessard 2017: 197–8; 2020: 189–91; Morony 2019: 189–91). Guided by this literature, historians have located archaeological evidence of mining in places such as Radrad in Yemen and Shash in Central Asia as key sources of silver for the early Caliphate (Dekówna 1971; Morony 2019: 191; Bessard 2020: 190).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sources of early Islamic silver: lead isotope analysis of dirhams

Merkel,

Oravisjärvi,

Kershaw

2023

Antiquity

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The expansion of the early Islamic state (c. AD 700–900) was underpinned by the minting of silver coins (dirhams) on an enormous scale. While the wider effects of this coinage have been studied extensively, the sources of silver have attracted less attention and research has relied on literary texts pointing to mines in Arabia and Central Asia. Here, the authors use lead isotope and trace element analyses of more than 100 precisely dated silver coins to provide a geochemical perspective on Islamic silver. The results identify multiple new sources, stretching from Morocco to the Tien Shen, and indicate an Abbasid-period mining boom. These source locations have implications for contemporary geopolitics including on the Islamic-Byzantine frontier.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%