Catalogue of the Islamic Coins of the Imperial Hermitage

Alexey Konstantinovich Markov, Alfred Kinzelbach

• Publisher: Donata Kinzelbach Verlag
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9783942490658

The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg houses the finest and oldest numismatic collection in Russia, comprising approximately 1.5 million items. Founded alongside the picture gallery and the collection of antiquities, the Hermitage's numismatic holdings were initially assembled through occasional acquisitions. Over time, however, they expanded through the purchase of entire collections acquired by Catherine the Great, both within Russia and abroad. From the second half of the seventeenth century onward, the Hermitage Coin Cabinet—originally serving as the imperial court's numismatic collection—was granted the primary right to be enriched with coins and medals from private collections, individual discoveries, and archaeological excavations conducted throughout Russia. Among its many treasures, the Hermitage's collection of coins representing Islamic civilization—comprising over 180,000 items—is particularly renowned. The foundation of its pre-Mongolian section consists of coins of the Caliphate and successive Muslim dynasties from the ninth to the twelfth centuries, covering the entire medieval Islamic world. Of exceptional scholarly importance is the uniquely comprehensive series of coins issued by Turkic rulers such as the Karakhanids and Shirvanshahs, as well as the extensive assemblage of Mongol and post-Mongol dynastic coinages. Together, these materials provide a remarkably detailed picture of monetary circulation across Transoxiana, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, the Crimea, and the middle and lower Volga regions. Within this field, the collection of Golden Horde coinage stands out for its sheer size and typological diversity. Alexei Konstantinovich Markov (1858–1920), who served as senior curator and keeper of the Hermitage Numismatic Department from 1900 to 1920, was an eminent Russian scholar and a foremost authority on Classical, Byzantine, Medieval, Oriental, and Russian coinage. He compiled a manuscript catalogue of the Hermitage's Oriental coins in two volumes, supplemented by amendments. This work, encompassing the bulk of the Museum's Islamic collection, remains an invaluable resource for the study of Oriental numismatics. As Markov's catalogue was written in Russian, handwritten, and reproduced lithographically in only a few copies, I considered it highly worthwhile to prepare an English edition of this important work, thereby making it accessible to a broader international community of scholars. The present edition comprises both volumes and the amendments and supplements.