138, Lot: 299. Estimate $75. Sold for $97. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ARAB-SASANIAN. Dabuyads of Tabaristan. Sulayman. 787-789 AD. AR Tabari Drachm (24mm, 1.80 g). Dated PYE 137 (788/9 AD). Sasanian style bust imitating Khosrau II right, but with face replaced by rhomboid bearing the Arabic word bakh / Fire altar flanked by attendants; date and mint. Malek 105.1; cf. SIC Ashmolean 434; Album 65. Good VF.

Sulayman was the only governor of Tabaristan who felt it necessary to adhere to the Islamic stricture against portraiture and replace the Sasanian bust with an abstract design.