Very Rare Husrav II Gold Dinar

Triton XIV, Lot: 529. Estimate $15000. Sold for $9000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SASANIAN KINGS. Husrav (Khosrau) II. AD 591-628. AV Dinar (24mm, 4.18 g, 12h). Uncertain mint. Dated RY 36 (AD 625/6). Facing bust, wearing mural crown with frontal crescent and surmounted by pellet-in-crescent; crescents and fillets over shoulders, crown flanked by stars / Husrav standing facing, crown and symbols as on obverse, holding sword; “syčsyh” to lower left. Cf. K. Mosig-Walburg. “Sonderprägungen des Xusrō II vom Typ Göbl V/6 und VI/7,” Iranica Antiqua XXVIII (1993), 2-7; Göbl type VI/7; Paruck 460; Saeedi -. VF, areas of toning, a few edge marks. Very rare.

Beginning in 611 AD (RY 21), a series of special issue silver drachms and gold dinars were struck on behalf of Husrav (Khosrau) II and were probably intended as special issue those who helped to support and expand the empire. The drachms show a crowned bust of the king right on the obverse and a facing portrait of Anahit on the reverse. The dinars were of two types. Those of RY 21 show a crowned bust of the king right on the obverse and a facing portrait of Anahit on the reverse. Those beginning in RY 33, however, featured a crowned facing portrait of the king on the obverse and the king standing facing on the reverse. The reverse legends of both the silver and gold issues proclaim may Iran expand. This was certainly true during the early years of Husrav’s reign, when the Sasanians had conquered much of the Levant, going so far as to occupy Armenia, as well as the cities of Damascus, Jerusalem, and Alexandria.

By AD 622, the tide had begun, making that wish a more hollow one. That year, the Byzantine emperor, Heraclius, had pushed the Sasanians out of Armenia and made his way as far as the ancient Achaemenid town of Ganzhak, sacking the town and destroying the fire temple there. Over the next several years (and decades), the Sasanians would continue to receive military setbacks, precipitating the loss of much of their empire. This was particularly true in relation to the Muslims, who expanded out of the Hijaz and into the imperial void left by continued war between the Sasanians and Byzantines. According to legend, at the same time that the Byzantines were driving the Sasanians back from Armenia, Husrav received a letter from Muhammad, asking the king to preach Islam. Violently rejecting this (which included the tearing-up of the letter), Husrav is said to have sent men to capture Muhammad, who, when he heard of this plot is said to have replied, “may his kingdom tear apart,” predicting as well that the king would be murdered by his son. Prophetically all of this came to pass: Husrav was indeed murdered by his son, Kavad (Kavadh) II, and the ensuing dynastic civil war did weaken Sasanian power, which resulted in its fall to the Muslims in AD 651.