Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to identify aspects of classical material culture that influenced or are reflected in other ancient societies. The museum offers one case: coins of an Arabian kingdom struck on a Greek model, as a modern book on coinage presents them. Greek and Roman coins themselves, and the other crafts named in the expectation, are for your class to bring. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- E4.1 identify and describe aspects of classical material culture that influenced or that are reflected in other ancient societies and later cultures […]
2 The lesson
What does a copied design tell you?
Describe the design on each face and say which parts look borrowed and which look local. Ask what the borrowing suggests about contact between the two societies, and what it does not prove.
Go deeper
Look at one coin as the record describes it. In the record of the coinage of the pre-Islamic Arabian kingdoms, Farajallah Ahmad Yusuf reports that the Sabaeans struck coins on the Greek model, the oldest from the second half of the fourth century BCE, with the helmeted head of Athena on the obverse and an owl, olive sprig and crescent on the reverse, and letters in Musnad script marking the denomination. 2 In the late second and early first centuries BCE coins appeared with a bearded, crowned man representing the king or the god Almaqah; Sabaean coin names in inscriptions include balat and radim. 2 Notice what the record calls Greek, the model, and what it names as Sabaean: the Musnad letters and the coin names.
Often misunderstood
Do not assume that coinage in Arabia began with Islam. Yusuf opens his introduction by noting that the Arabs knew coinage before Islam, struck by kingdoms of the Arabian Peninsula such as Saba and the Nabataeans. 2 The record also reports that the Nabataean kings struck a series of coins, Hellenistic in influence before Obodas II and less so after. 3
How do we know?
Everything in this record comes from one author's introduction, and it describes the coins in words. Two kinds of evidence appear in it: the coins themselves, and inscriptions. Sabaean coin names, balat and radim, are known from inscriptions. 2 Tomb inscriptions at al-Hijr (Mada'in Salih) name "Aretan sela coins" as fines for violating the tombs. 3 4 Ask which kind of evidence shows that a coin was used, and which shows only that it was struck.
Think about it
A coin shows what was struck, while an inscription that names coins as fines shows how a coin was named in a legal setting. Which would you trust more as evidence that a coin was in circulation, and why?
Into the museum
- Coinage of the pre-Islamic Arabian kingdoms: the Sabaean and Nabataean coins as Yusuf presents them.
- Al-Hijr: the place where the tomb inscriptions are found; its page lists the events set there.
Try this
Read Coinage of the pre-Islamic Arabian kingdoms. Draw both faces of an early Sabaean coin and label each element.
3 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Coinage of the pre-Islamic Arabian kingdoms have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
An owl and a helmeted head. Farajallah Ahmad Yusuf writes that the Sabaeans struck coins on the Greek model, the oldest from the second half of the fourth century BCE, with the helmeted head of Athena on one face and an owl, olive sprig and crescent on the other, and letters in Musnad script marking the denomination. He adds that Nabataean coins were Hellenistic in influence before Obodas II and less so after. What travels with a coin besides its metal?
I can now
Notes
- 1. Ontario Ministry of Education, The Ontario Curriculum: Classical Studies and International Languages
- 2. Farajallah Ahmad Yusuf, al-Ayat al-qur'aniyya ala al-maskukat al-islamiyya: dirasa muqarana (Riyadh: King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, 1423/2003), p. 17
- 3. Farajallah Ahmad Yusuf, al-Ayat al-qur'aniyya ala al-maskukat al-islamiyya: dirasa muqarana (Riyadh: King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, 1423/2003), p. 18
- 4. Farajallah Ahmad Yusuf, al-Ayat al-qur'aniyya ala al-maskukat al-islamiyya: dirasa muqarana (Riyadh: King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, 1423/2003), p. 19