Medieval Georgian Coinage

Abstract

This article surveys the medieval coinage minted on Georgian lands to the Mongol age. Aimed at college-level pedagogy, it underscores the benefits of contextualizing this rich numismatic record regionally, ecumenically, and cross-culturally. The Christianization of the region named for the Caucasus Mountains, which accelerated after the royal conversions of the fourth century, heightened the isthmus’ long-standing cross-cultural condition. Meanwhile, Caucasia’s traditional socio-cultural orientation southwards, especially towards Iran, did not come to an end with the entrenchment of Christianity. Since the Iron Age, Caucasia has been an active component of the Iranic (Persianate) world. The formation of the dār al-Islām and its extension across Caucasia did not thwart the southwards orientation. In Georgian lands, Islamic types and Arabic inscriptions were commonplace on the local coinage produced by Muslims and Christians alike. The Georgian Bagratids, identifying themselves as a Christian Byzantine-like dynasty, continued to deploy Islamic types on their coinage even during its “Golden Age” in the eleventh to early thirteenth century. At the same time, the nexus of the Iranian and Persianate world, on the one hand, and Caucasia, on the other, endured and evolved. The chronological span investigated here is appropriately bookended by coins embodying imperial hegemonies whose epicenters were located in Iran (i.e., the Sasanians and the Ilkhans).