Of Conferences and Coins

This semester I have been keeping busy, presenting a paper at the University of Pennsylvania conference on a Seljuq Qur’ān manuscript, Toward a ‘Biography’ of a Manuscript: A copy of the Qur’an from 12th c. Iran. I also had the pleasure of discussing the animals of Qusayr ‘Amra’s wall paintings at the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Islamic Studies conference, Communities Like You: Animals and Islam. These, in addition to reading for my preliminary exams, may explain my recent radio silence on this blog (if not excuse it).

I have also been working on creating a website about Byzantine coins in the Bryn Mawr Special Collections, which I will unveil here as soon as it is completed. As a teaser (and not a Byzantine one), here’s a Seljuq coin from Syria that Professor Stefan Heidemann graciously helped me identify:

Coin from Seljuq Syria, minted in Antioch under Sultan Ridwan ibn Malikshah, ruler of Aleppo from 1095 to 1113. Aleppo became a tributary state of the crusader principality of Antioch in 1111. Obverse and reverse depict a winged lion or sphinx. Above, the word Sultan. BMC 2011.17.438

Coin from Seljuq Syria, minted in Antioch under Sultan Ridwan ibn Malikshah, ruler of Aleppo from 1095 to 1113. Aleppo became a tributary state of the crusader principality of Antioch in 1111.
Obverse and reverse depict a winged lion or sphinx. Above, the word Sultan. BMC 2011.17.438