Reading Persian coin legends

A Sasanian silver drachm is effectively a database entry in metal. The obverse carries the king's name and titles in Pahlavi around a crowned bust whose crown design is unique to that ruler. The reverse shows a fire altar flanked by two attendants, with the mint abbreviation on one side of the altar and the regnal year on the other.

1. 1Identify the ruler from the crown first — it is faster and more reliable than reading worn legends.
2. 2Confirm with the obverse legend, which typically opens with the name followed by a royal formula.
3. 3Read the mint abbreviation to the right of the altar; two- to four-letter forms such as WH, AS, BBA and ART are the commonest.
4. 4Read the regnal year to the left, written out in Middle Persian numerals-as-words.
5. 5Cross-check: the regnal year must fall within the ruler's known reign length.

Achaemenid sigloi and darics are almost entirely anepigraphic — they carry no legend at all, only the running archer-king. Attribution therefore rests on typology: the pose of the figure, the weapons carried, and the style of the punch on the reverse. Parthian coinage, by contrast, is verbose, using Greek legends for centuries before shifting toward Aramaic and Parthian forms in the later dynasty.

• ✦Parthian Greek legends usually run in lines around the seated archer on the reverse.
• ✦Titles such as ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΝ (King of Kings) and ΦΙΛΕΛΛΗΝΟΣ (Philhellene) are standard formulae.
• ✦Later Parthian issues degrade into blundered Greek, which is a dating tool rather than a defect.
• ✦Mint monograms below the throne identify Ecbatana, Seleucia, Rhagae and others.

From the Umayyad reform onward, Islamic coins struck in Iran carry a highly standardised text: the profession of faith, Qur'anic phrases, the ruler's name and titles, and a mint-and-date formula that usually begins with the words meaning "struck this dirham in" followed by the mint name and the hijri year.

Converting a hijri year to the Gregorian calendar approximately: multiply by 0.970 and add 622. The lunar year is shorter, so the offset drifts — use a conversion table for anything you intend to publish.

1. 1Start with high-grade, well-published examples where the legend is fully legible.
2. 2Trace the letters on paper; the muscle memory accelerates recognition dramatically.
3. 3Work through one mint at a time rather than one ruler at a time.
4. 4Compare every reading against an auction catalogue entry for the same type before trusting it.
5. 5Keep a personal glossary of the abbreviations you encounter, with your own photographs as examples.