SASANIAN COINS

The Achaemenian, Arsacid and Sasanian dynasties, which together ruled Iran for more than a millennium, their coinages are an invaluable source of information about the history, culture and economic life of the Sasanian state. The alteration in Sasanian numismatic portraiture stems from Iranian national tradition; such changes reflect a rejection of the Arsacid dynasty and all it stood for a deliberate challenge to the old enemy Rome. As regards weight-standard and choice of denominations, the Sasanians at first kept strictly to existing traditions. The silver drachm of Attic weight, which even in Parthian times was everywhere the commonest currency, became the chief denomination of the Sasanian state. The formulation of Sasanian coin inscriptions is determined by the political and religious motives of the dynasty. The coin inscriptions are in Sasanian Pahlavi (Middle Persian) and, in isolated instances, ideograms are used. The problems of Sasanian numismatic art are closely connected with those of technology.