Alaa Aldin | Akateeminen Kirjakauppa

The treasure of Buseyra is preserved in the museum of Deir az-Zour in Syria. The coins in the hoard cover a large period from the Sassanian Sovereign Khusrô II (590/1-628) until the terminal date 331H/ 941. These coins offer precious information, not only about a large number of mints but about the periods and quantities of minting activity.



This treasure is important because it is the first complete hoard of the 10th century discovered in the al-Djazīra area. According to Tomas Noonan, the Middle East and Central Asian hoards only amount to ten per cent of the treasures found in northern and eastern Europe and the Nordic countries. In comparing contemporaneous 10th-century silver hoards, and especially the relation between the numbers of coin dies and their representation of their products, we can obtain insights into the flows of money and the balance of payments for each area and each minting city.