შაჰ აბას I-ის ზაგემის ზარაფხანის ახალი სამონეტო ემისიები

Abstract

From the 16th century another mint, Zagemi, started to operate in Georgia. Recent studies have shown that the mint left a rich monetary heritage, both in silver and copper emissions. Its new specimens are actively being published in many scholarly works, but a lot of new coins are yet to be studied. Our goal is only to describe the new specimens of the silver coinages of Abbas I and present their history. The first coin in Zagemi was minted by the Persian Shah Tahmasp I. Since that time, the city started to circulate its own coins. The main source about that is shown from the works of Persian historian of Turkmen origin Iskandar Munshi, where he reports that Georgian kingdoms were conquered, and the kingdoms of Kakheti, Kartli and Meskheti minted coins in the name of their master (conqueror). The first work about the coins of Kakheti kingdom (eastern Georgia) belongs to T. Kutelia, who perfectly describes the newly found silver Zagemi coins (and also the coins of Abbas I) and allocated the two main denominations – one abbasi (weighting ca. 7.76 g.-7,5 g.) and one muhammadi (weighting ca. 3.8g.). The first new type of the coin which we want to describe is one abbasi (pic.7; pic.8) with no year of issue. Av. Shia religious formula in four lines, where the word رسول (messenger) was changed by نبى (prophet). – There is no God but Allah alone, Muhammad is the prophet of Allah, ‘Ali is the wali of Allah. لا اله الا الله محمد نبى الله على ولى الله Rv. In the center Persian text – Slave of the king of purity, Abbas, struck at Zagemi. بنده شاه و لايت عباس ضرب زگم Around another Persian formula and the names of twelve Shia Imams. The unique in that coin is the way how the name of Zagemi is depicted. All letters are written separately and placed on the elongated ending of the letter mim - م ( pic. 2). The description of that word on Abbas I’s coins by T. Kutelia, it was known as زگم or .گمز Also new researches show that the coins in the name of Abbas I were struck in another denomination – one shahi (1/4 of abbasi). We found an almost identical coin to what we have described (pic. 7, pic. 8) above (one abbasi), but which is of shahi (pic.10) denomination (weight 1.98 g.). Also, another new coin with shahi denomination (1.73 gr.) is interesting (pic. 12), as it also does not have the date of issue. Two different dies were used, while the Shia creed of faith was removed. The last type (two coins), which we describe, are in two different denominations: one abbasi (pic.13) and one shahi (pic14). It is notable that both of them contain the minting date as 1011 AH. (= 1602) which is rare due to the bad condition of those coins. As a conclusion, it could be said that Zagemi was the main strategic city in Kakheti kingdom, which is clearly shown on the Ottoman map (pic. 6). However, after the conquests of Abbas I, Kakheti kingdom weakened mainly due to the crisis in the capital Zagemi. The city gradually lost its economic importance and was later on deserted. But the huge heritage left by the Zagemi mint still has to be well researched.