Coin Umayyad Caliphate Anonymous - Fals, undated, without mint - 700 / 744 Tanger ?

This copper coin belongs to the category of fals, used for everyday transactions in the provinces of the Umayyad Caliphate. It bears neither a ruler's name nor an identifiable mint mark, making its geographical attribution uncertain. A North African origin, attributed to Tangier in numismatic literature, nevertheless remains hypothetical.

This period corresponds to the height of the Umayyad Caliphate, which then stretched from the Iberian Peninsula to Central Asia. In North Africa, the first decades of the 8th century saw the completion of the conquest of the Maghreb and the launch of the expansion into Hispania from 711 onwards. Tangier then occupied a strategic position on the Strait of Gibraltar and was one of the main military and administrative centres of the region.

Anonymous fals bear witness to the spread of the Islamic monetary system in the western provinces of the caliphate. Their circulation accompanied local trade, the payment of wages and the collection of taxes in territories recently integrated into the empire.