A New Look at One Sassanid Shapur I Gold Coin (241-272 AD)

Abstract
In the minting of the first Sasanian coins, the details of the designs, faces, figures, and arrays of the king were carefully considered. In this research, the content of a gold coin from the time of King Shapur I (241-272 AD) has been investigated. The shape of the Shah’s face is different compared to other coins minted during Shapur’s time, which shows weakness and withering. There is also a three-horned spear in the hands of two figures around the fire pit on the back of the coin. Dihim’s attachment to Shapur’s foot is one of the important points of the studied coin. For a better understanding of Shapur’s face, the verses of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, which narrates the end of Shapur’s life, have been used. Studies have shown that the image on the studied coin shows the sick face of the king at the end of his life, which is confirmed by referring to the poems of Shahnameh. The three-horned spear on the back of the coin as a symbol of Shiva and the hyacinth of the Kushan religion is a sign of the king’s power and his successes, especially in the battle against the Kushans. It could be said that the three-pronged spear in the hands of the king and Ahura Mazda, the guardian of the hearth and the sacred fire, is a reminder of the submission of the Kushan religion to the Iranian religion, and Dihim is its symbol. From the Sassanid kings, along with a three-pronged spear, fire, crescent, and moon, meaning connection and friendship with Ahura Mazda and the gods Mehr and Anahita. Also, the similarity of the faces of the king and Ahura Mazda shows the same claim that the early Sassanid kings considered themselves to be of Yazdani race and face.
Keywords: Shapur I, Sasanian Coins, Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, Three-Pronged Spear.
 
Introduction
The necessity of using historical texts and reports in the analysis of coins was revealed several decades ago in Greek and Roman numismatics. Sasanian coins are precious documents of Iran’s history, culture, art, and religion, through which the names of kings, mints, religious symbols, images of goddesses, sacred rituals, and Zoroastrian gods are revealed. The study of Sasanian coins began at the end of the 18th century AD and has made significant progress ever since. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the development of archaeological research on the one hand, and the increase in historical awareness of the Sasanian period, on the other hand, have shown the importance of numismatic data for researchers and the field of numismatics as a discipline. The link between history and archaeology received more attention, and in the second half of the 20th century, new methods and approaches were considered in Sasanian numismatics. In the middle of the 20th century, Franz Altheim (1898-1976) strongly realized the greatest weakness of the previous research about the history of Iran in the Sassanid period, and that was the historians’ neglect of the sources and documents of the first financial and economic category, i.e., coins. Thus, in collaboration with an Austrian archaeologist named Robert Gobel (1919-1997 AD), he started writing a book titled “Asian State and Systematic Classification of Coins”. In Sasanian numismatics, the place of historical texts and reports is not yet known correctly, and in the last two decades, the authors of the Sasanian encyclopediae have looked at historical texts in addition to numismatic data, but regarding the importance of historical texts, comprehensive research in data interpretation is needed. Numismatics has not been done yet. For example, texts such as Tabari’s Tarikh or Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. These sources provide us with information about how comparing financial documents could solve some of the old mysteries of Sasanian history and numismatics. Therefore, in the current research, verses from Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, which narrates the end of Shapur’s life, have been used to analyze the studied gold coin. This historical research has been done in a descriptive, analytical-comparative way. In this way, to better understand Shapur’s face, the verses of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, which narrates the end of Shapur’s life, have been used. In this research, in addition to the detailed introduction of the desired coin, misconceptions about the coin, including its weight (8.2g) and the place of minting (Merv) were corrected.
 
Identified Traces 
King Shapur’s gold coin has a weight of 7.2 grams and a diameter of 22 mm. There is no information about the year and location of the minting but based on the weight of the coin (2.8 g), Zohrabian and Afgari considered it belong to the monetary system of Kushan and Merv, which is not true because Shapur’s coins in Merv are similar to coins minted by the government. On the coin, in the center, the image of Shapur is right. The spherical crown is a symbol of the sun. On the crown, there are numerous grooves, a ring, and a crescent moon. The curly hair of the king’s head protrudes from the crown and is tied at the back. The king’s beard is tied at the bottom with a ribbon, and a band descends from the crown and covers the ears. A pearl necklace hangs on the king’s neck. In general, the Shah’s face is in a state of weakness and illness, and it is different from his statue in the Shapur Cave and the reliefs of Kazeroon, and it is more in line with the verses of the Shahnameh, which described the end of his life. On the back of the coin, in the center, there is a high elongated pillar-shaped fire pit on a pillar, a tablet image, and a crescent moon. Two figures with regal and spherical crowns stand on the left and right sides of the hearth, with their backs to each other, one with a curly beard and the other with a pointed beard. The three-pronged spear in the hands of Shah and Ahura Mazda is not seen in any of the coins of Shapur I. Therefore, the face of Shapur is the distinguishing feature of the studied coin from the other coins.
 
Conclusion 
Based on the face of Shapur, it could be said that the studied gold coin is related to the end of Shapur’s life and when he was suffering from illness. The crown and its decorations are carefully depicted on the coin, and the weakness and illness of Shapur’s face were also confirmed by referring to the poems of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. Shapur’s permission for such an image of him to be engraved on the coin shows his interest in character and moral development. Therefore, doubts such as a mistake in molding or inaccuracy in the role of Shapur’s face on the studied coin are not correct. The three-horned spear that is in the hands of the two icons around the hearth shows the dominance of Shapur over the Kushans and the dominance of the Iranian religion over the Kushans’, with the guard of Ahura Mazda and the king with Shiva’s three-horned spears in his hand, with the hearth and fire as the symbols of the Iranian religion. Two sides of the coin show two separate concepts: one side speaks of the majesty and power of the king, and the other tells of the end of the victorious king’s life.