Conserving the (coin) Hoard of Jazira

NUMISMATICS: Restoring Islamic Coins to Reveal the Past. The Louvre Abu Dhabi is working on what it has named the Hoard of Jazira, more than 2,800 pieces of the region’s history (David Belcher, NYT). The headline and first paragraph of this article are a little misleading. Hundreds of these are Sasanian coins from late antiquity:

The Hoard of Jazira, as the museum has named the cache, was obtained in 2019 from a private collector in Europe (the museum declined to identify the person). It consists of 2,861 coins dating from the reign of King Shapur II (A.D. 309-379) to the Caliph Al Ma’mun (A.D. 813-833). There are 434 Sasanian drachmas, 156 dirhams and Arab half-dirhams, 323 Umayyad dirhams and 1,948 silver coins of the Abbasid dynasty.

The article includes lots of information about coin conservation. For more on the Sasanian (Sassanian) Empire and why it is of interest to PaleoJudaica, start here and follow the links.

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