Document Type : .

Authors

• Hakimeh Ahmadizadeh Shendi ¹
• Reza Shabani ²
• javad Heravi ³

¹ PhD candidate of in History if ancient Iran, Department of history of Iran, Islamic Azad University ,Science and Research Branch, Tehran, Iran

² Professor Department of history. Faculity of Literature and Humanities. Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

³ Associate professor of History, Department of history of Iran, Islamic Azad University, Thran, Iran

Abstract

Historical and numismatic evidences show that Merv province was the focus of Ardeshir Babkan and his successors (224-651 AD) from the beginning of the Sassanid period. Merv is the first city whose name is included on the back of coins, while the name of the mint on the back of Sasanian coins was not common among early kings period, and this indicates the importance of Merv from a political and economic point of view. But our issue is about Merv and its interesting nickname, Shahigan. Why, among all those important border cities, only Merv had such a title? And what is the connection between the title Shahigan and the early gold coins for Merv? From the analysis of a Manavi text and some Islamic texts of the 3rd and 4th centuries of Hijra, the conclusion was reached that the word Shahigan means the palace of the emperor, which was the residence of the emperor of Iran.Therefore, the existence of a palace equal to the capital palace, which was under a royal province and acted as the eastern capital, now clarifies why Merv minted gold muskets in the early Sassanid era. In this article We discuss about emportance of Merv, shahigan title, Merv mint and relationship between this important title and early gold coins.

Keywords

• Sassanian
• Marv
• Shahigan
• Pahlavi texts
• coins