Some Aspects of Medieval Oriental Numismatics as a Historical Source (2)

This article contains a concise representation of the most challenging issues of the medieval Oriental numismatics. The author emphasizes the importance of the numismatic information for the study of the economic situation in the states and in some regions, of the dynamics of commodity-money relations, of the nature of the monetary policy pursued by the authorities, of the structure of money circulation in the states, of the administrative structure of the states and its changes over time, of the political declaration of power by issuers of coins, of the religious policy of the states, of the sequence and chronology of the reigns, and of many other aspects of Oriental history. In parallel, the article points to some limitations of numismatics as a historical source. The author points to the impossibility to formulate patterned approaches, rules, and regulations, which observance in numismatic research would always lead to obtaining all necessary and standardized information. Numismatic objects are polyparametric, and in most cases their parameters appear to be informative and may be disclosed only in specific historical situations of the particular historical periods and of the particular states.