Alexey I. Bugarchev

A.Kh. Khalikov Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences Republic of Tatarstan, Kazan, Russia

E-mail: abugar.61@rambler.ru

Keywords: copper coin, dinar, weight, Bulgar, Mongol Empire, the 13th century.

The article examines copper coins issued between the second half of the 1230s and 1251. During this period, copper dinars were minted in the Bulgar region with the name of the late Baghdad Caliph al-Nasir li-Din Allah (died in 1225). After 1251, some of the dinars were recoined with the name of Khagan Möngke (1251–1259). First, large coins of the so-called archaic type were issued with the name of al-Nasir with an average weight of 6.1 g. After that, dinars weighing 3.1 g were minted for regional circulation. To establish the weight changes, materials of two numismatic complexes were used – from the funds of the Bulgar Museum-reserve (765 items with the names of al-Nasir and Möngke were recorded) and from the manuscript catalog of D.G. Mukhametshin (363 items were recorded). After constructing histograms showing the dependence of the number of coins on their weight value, the author distinguished four stages of decrease in the estimated weight of the Bulgar copper coins from 6.1 to 1.6 g. The study also established that the dinars with the name of al-Nasir of the 1240s and Möngke coins of the 1250s of different weights were circulating simultaneously in the markets of the former Volga Bulgaria.

DOI: 10.31857/S086960630009507-6