Coin Iran Tabaristan, Khurshid - Silver Hemidrachm - PYE 101 (752 / 753)

Products offered for pre-order are sold subject to effective delivery and quantitative allocation by suppliers and/or issuing institutions. The announced availability dates are indicative and may be changed independently of the seller's will.

In the event of delivery delays, partial delivery or inability to supply, the seller reserves the right to adjust or cancel all or part of the order. In such cases, a full refund of the amounts corresponding to undelivered products will be issued, without compensation or penalty.

Please note: for pre-order products paid in instalments, the order is only considered final after effective allocation by the supplier or issuing institution and full receipt of payment.

This silver hemidrachm was issued in the name of Khurshid, ruler of Tabaristan, a mountainous region in northern Iran bordering the Caspian Sea and largely corresponding to the present-day province of Mazandaran. It is dated to year 101 of the post-Yazdegardian era (PYE), i.e. 752?753 CE.

The coinage of Tabaristan stands in direct continuity with the Sasanian tradition. The obverse features a stylised profile portrait of the ruler, while the reverse reproduces characteristic motifs inherited from Sasanian coinage, most notably the fire altar flanked by two attendants. Despite the Islamic conquest of Persia in the 7th century, these issues retain an iconography and inscriptions largely inspired by earlier models.

Khurshid was the last great ispahbad of the Dabuyid dynasty to maintain broad autonomy in the face of the Abbasid Caliphate, established in 750 following the fall of the Umayyads. The rugged geography of Tabaristan allowed local rulers to durably preserve their institutions and certain pre-Islamic Iranian traditions. Khurshid pursued a policy of independence by relying on the Alborz mountain range as a natural bulwark. His reign corresponds to a period of growing tensions with Abbasid power, which sought to strengthen its control over the peripheral regions of the empire. This coinage, still written in Pahlavi and faithful to Sasanian iconography, bears witness to the persistence of Iranian political and cultural traditions several generations after the Arab conquest. These coins thus represent major testimonies to the transition between the Sasanian legacy and the Islamic order then being consolidated across the Middle East.