Monetary reform under the Sufyanids: the papyrological evidence

Abstract

For the past fifty years, there has been a debate over whether the Umayyad caliph Muʿāwiya introduced a short-lived gold coinage in Syria. After reappraising the literary evidence, this study argues that an enigmatic phrase in a papyrus from this period constitutes evidence for state enforcement of the circulation of a new kind of gold coinage issued under Muʿāwiya. A die-study of the extant specimens of a peculiar imitation of Byzantine gold which has had its crosses effaced, and has been attributed to Muʿāwiya on the basis of the testimony of literary sources, confirms them to be the result of a large-scale, albeit ultimately unsuccessful, initiative. This demonstrates that, in addition to the east, there also existed a separate drive towards an expansion of the money supply in Syria-Egypt during the latter half of Muʿāwiya's caliphate, a development which testifies to a relatively substantial programme of state-building by the caliph.