Dear colleagues and friends,

Below you will find an announcement written by Dr. Stuart Sears that will be
published soon in the ANS Magazine. It gives notice of a conference, "The
Heritage of the High Caliphate: Dinars, Dirhams and Coppers of the Late
Umayyad and Early `Abbasid Periods, ca. 700-950," that he will organize. It
will be held Thursday and Friday, June 24-25, 2004, in our new building at
96 Fulton Street/140 William Street in southern Manhattan.

As indicated in Dr. Sears' prospectus, the conference topic is Islamic
coinage from its introduction in 697 CE up until the Buyid takeover in
Baghdad in 945 which is taken as the turning point in the caliphs' loss of
political authority to military men. All Islamic coinage and indeed all
coinage of the Muslim world, even if not Islamic in type or not issued by
the Umayyads or Abbasids, can be included, provided that it was issued
between the specified years. Furthermore, we welcome historical papers
using a wider range of evidence, provided there is some connection with
coinage and monetary history in these years.

All ANS members and the public in general are invited (there will be a
registration fee, however), and in particular historians, whether academic
or independent, and students, whether graduate, undergraduate, or from
secondary school (all students at a reduced fee). We hope that teachers
will bring the conference to the attention of their students. The
conference will be structured to allow plenty of questions, comments, and
discussion from the audience. The workshop in reading coins and the round
table for showing and discussing coins are intended to give beginners and
collectors who are not Middle East history experts a chance to participate.
There will also be plenty of time to meet, greet, and not least, eat.

Please let me know if you want your e-mail put on the list for further
announcements about this conference.

Michael Bates

The American Numismatic Society announces:

The Heritage of the High Caliphate: Dinars, Dirhams and Coppers of the
Late Umayyad and Early 'Abbasid Periods, ca. 700-950 CE

at The American Numismatic Society in New York
96 Fulton Street and 140 William Street.

Thursday and Friday, June 24-25, 2004

Late Umayyad and early 'Abbasid dinars, dirhams and coppers were not only
the first distinctly Muslim coins but formed for many years a vast monetary
system stretching from North Africa to Central Asia. The all-epigraphic
Arabic coins introduced by the caliph 'Abd al-Malik presented a symbolic
statement of the essential principles of Islam and its caliphs. They also
proved to be an unrivaled engine for commerce. They were minted in
prodigious quantities replacing previous Sasanian and Byzantine style
coinages, and circulated extensively throughout most of Europe, the Near
East and Asia, reaching as far as Scandinavia and China. Today, the coins
constitute documents for political, economic, and social life at a time of
great cultural efflorescence as well as social and political change.

The conference invites papers treating any aspect of coins of the late
Umayyad and early 'Abbasid periods as artifacts of civilization and culture.
The topics of papers may be numismatic, historical or art historical. They
may examine problems in the reading and interpretation of the Arabic legends
or the iconography, the representation of Islam and sovereignty, or the
production, use and regulation of these coinages. This includes problems in
the introduction of these coins and later transition from one series to
another.

The conference will also feature a workshop in reading the Arabic legends on
these coins and a roundtable for the discussion of issues of common
interest, and of coins if anyone wishes to bring them along.

Queries and abstracts should be sent by e-mail to Dr. Stuart D. Sears, 263
Concord Road, Longmeadow, MA 01106 (508 636-8235, sdsears@...), or
to Dr. Michael L. Bates at the Society (212 234-3130 x 222,
bates@...). Communications by E-mail are preferred. Abstracts
should be submitted by March 5, 2004, but time permitting, late submissions
will be fitted in where possible.


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