Arab. arch. epig. 2: 1991: 196-207
Six copper Tawilah from northeastern Arabia D. T. POTTS University of Sydney, Austra...
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Arab. arch. epig. 2: 1991: 196-207
Six copper Tawilah from northeastern Arabia D. T. POTTS University of Sydney, Australia Tawilah are bent bars of bronze, silver or billon bearing an often illegible Arabic legend. They are peculiar to the region of al-Hasa, while forming part of a much more widespread corpus of bent coins known as lurins. This category of coinage will be examined, and six ”new” tawiluh published in the present article.
The copper tawilah of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia are numismatic rarities which have often been described, frequently misunderstood, and rarely illustrated. The six tawilah published here were found in the Eastern Province several decades ago and are currently in a private collection. Their study prompted a re-examination of the entire subject of Arabian tawilah. The origin of the tawilah has long been disputed. The earliest extant Western description of the tawilah derives from W. G. Palgrave who saw them during his visit to the region in 1863. He wrote, “But in Hasa we find an entirely original and perfectly local coinage, namely the ’Toweelah or ’long bit’, as it is very suitably called from its form. It consists of a small copper bar, much like a stout tack, about an inch in length, and split at one end, with the fissure slightly opened; so that it looks altogether like a compressed Y. Along one of its flattened sides run a few Cufic characters, indicating the name of the Carmathian prince under whose auspices this choice production of Arab numismatics was achieved; nothing else is to be read on the Toweelah, neither date nor motto. Three of these are worth a ’gorsh’ and accordingly every copper nail separately may equal about three farthings. This currency is available in Hasa its native place, alone, and hence the proverb ‘Zey Toweelat-il-Hasa’, ‘like a Hasa long bit’, is often applied to a person who can make himself valuable at home. Silver and gold Toweelahs were issued in the days of Carmathian glory; but they have been long since melted down” (I). Palgrave’s reliability on matters Arabian was, of course, hotly contested by later authorities such as H. St. J. B. Philby (2), but his
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COPPER TAWILAH thesis of the Qarmatid origin of the copper fawilah of northeastern Arabia was almost universally accepted and repeated by many subsequent commentators on the question. In 1900 s. M. Zwemer said they were "undoubtedly made by one of the Carmathian princes about the year 920 AD", and claimed that the name "Mohammadal-Saood could be read on some examples (3). In January 1904, the German traveller Hermann Burchardt found fawilah in circulation when he visited Hofuf. He wrote, "Kursierende Munzen sind der Maria Theresientaler, indische Scheidemiinze und der sonderbare Tawile. Er besteht aus einem Stuck umgebogenen Kupferdrahtes mit unleserlicher Inschrift. Es ist wohl die alteste kursierende Munze; sie wurde unter der Herrschaft der Carmathier vor uber 900 Jahren nur fur Hofuf ausgegeben; man erhalt bis zu 100 Stuck fiir einen talleri" (4). A year later, J. G. Lorimer described the fawilah as, "An ancient coin current only in the Hasa Oasis and said to be of Carmathian mintage. It is of copper and about an inch and a half in length; the shape is difficult to describe. The Tawilah appears to have been formed by doubling a strip of metal in the middle, after which the two limbs were compressed and welded together for % of the distance from the place of flexure, the points remaining slightly separated after the manner of a split-pin. The free ends are rounded, the compressed part is flattened, on both sides an illegible inscription apparently impressed before the strip was bent, is found on the exterior faces of the flattened portion ... the Tawilah is not recognised as legal tender" (5). In an article published in 1912 (6), and again in his 1936 contribution on larins in the Encyclopadia of Islam (7), J. Allan could quote Palgrave as his only source when it came to the fawilah, but he was nevertheless the first to show that, contrary to Palgrave, the al-Hasa tawilah did not represent "an entirely original and a perfectly local coinage", but rather belongs to a large category of bent coins known as larins. These coins, socalled because the earliest examples are thought to have been struck at Lar in Southwestern Iran, were minted not only at Lar but at Hormuz, Tabriz, Shiraz, Qazvin, Kashan, Ganja, Basra, around Goa, at Dabul, in the Maldives, and in Sri Lanka (8). Larins are first attested in a Western source in 1507, when they were seen at Hormuz by the Portuguese writer Gaspar Correia, and thereafter they are mentioned in the 16th, 17th (9),and 18th centuries by a large number of travellers, most of whom would have agreed with Sir John Chardin who, in 1711, wrote, "There is a Coin all along the Persian Gulf, called Larins, which is the most common in Trade" (10). Following Allan, R. E. Cheesman noted the affinity of the alHasa fawilah and the larger community of larins in 1926 (11).In an article published in 1936, Palgrave's Qarmatid thesis was soundly rejected and a reading of the legend on the tawilah proposed (see
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D. T. POTTS below) by the eminent numismatist John Walker (12), but this seems to have gone largely unnoticed, for 10 years later P. B. Cornwall, writing of his survey between Dammam and Qatif in 1940-41, said, “I also found examples of the old coinage peculiar to Hasa. This is the tawila, or ’long bit‘, a piece of copper with a small amount of silver in it. It is shaped rather like a t! but with one prong straight and the other slightly curved. It is said to have been made by one of the Carmathian princes about the year A.D. 920. Until the coming of the Turks in the last century, the tawila apparently was accepted at the rate of seventy-five to a Maria Theresa dollar” (13). In 1955 F. S. Vidal again questioned the Qarmatid attribution of the al-Hasa tawilah (14), but in 1965 the Qarmatid hypothesis was still referred to by B. Winder (15), and persists to this day in the second edition of the Encyclopadia of Islam (16). In fact, Palgrave adduced no proof that the tawilah were the products of the Qarmatids, and indeed their lead coinage, seen by the Persian traveller Nasr-i Khusraw when he visited al-Hasa in 1051 (17), had the shape of a true, circular coin covered with an Arabic legend (18).In fact, a study written by an anonymous Saudi Arabian scholar entitled ”Coinage Used by the People of Al-Hasa and its Dependencies in the Past and at Present” (19), states explicitly that the al-tawilah al-lariyah came into use after the demise of the Qarmatids. Without specifying any fixed dates, Wood classed the tawilah of al-Hasa among “the earlier larins, which were struck by the royal authority ... in Hormuz, El Hasa and Persia” (20). Further, he suggested that, “They have been made for several centuries ... but probably have not been made in recent years as most specimens observed are very much worn” (21). In an article published in 1936 mentioned above, J. Walker rejected the Qarmatid hypothesis as well as the Kufic character of the legend and argued that the bulk of the east Arabian tawilah had been struck under Ahmad 111 ibn Muhammad, the Ottoman Sultan who reigned between 1703 and 1730 (22). His reason for so arguing was the apparent similarity between part of the legend on the half piastre pieces of Sultan Ahmad and that on several ”legible” tawilah from Hofuf in the British Museum. This argument seems, however, untenable, for the simple reason that the first period of Ottoman control in al-Hasa ended in 1670, when ‘Umar Pasha, the last Ottoman governor of the region, surrendered to a force of Bani Khalid commanded by Barrak b. Ghurair al-Hamid (23). Thereafter, the Bani Khalid continued to rule until finally conquered by Wahhabi forces in 1795 (24). Thus, contrary to what Walker may have thought, the Ottomans did not control al-Hasa during the reign of Sultan Ahmad 111. The author of ”Coinage Used by the People of Al-Hasa”, however, who rightly distinguishes between tawilah of pure copper, and those of silver mixed with copper, says, “The
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COPPER TAWILAH mixed coins were older than the copper ones, which were known as ‘al-Sa‘duniyah’, after the name of Sacdun ibn Muhammad ibn Hamid ..., one of al-Hasa’s rulers from the year 1103 to 1135 [AH/ 1691-1722 AD]”. This was, in fact, Sacdunb. Muhammad b. Ghurayr Al-Hamid, one of the Bani Khalid Shaikhs (25). This being the case, we may, at least in part, be justified in proposing a new attribution for the tawilah of al-Hasa, and in viewing them as the native coinage of the Bani Khalid, overlods of al-Hasa from 1670 to 1795. The author of “Coinage Used by the People of Al-Hasa” also states that “Al-lariyah al-fawilah remained in use until the beginning of the thirteenth century of al-Hijrah, when they disappeared from circulation”. In other words, tawilah were already becoming scarce by the beginning of the 1880’s. This statement can be compared with the testimony of several late 19th and early 20th century writers on Hofuf. In an official survey of the Ottoman empire published in 1894, I ? Cuinet wrote, “en dehors des transactions commerciales, on se sert beaucoup, pour les achats et ventes entre indighnes, dune monnaie de cuivre en forme de pincettes, et que l’on nomme en effet el-taotrilld (pincettes). I1 en faut 70 pour faire un real (4 fr. 60). I1 y en avait aussi en argent qui portaient une inscription arabe signifiant: ‘honneur B l’homme sobre, honte B l’ambition’. Ces dernikres monnaies ont presque disparu depuis quelque temps, mais les faotiilk de cuivre sont toujours trks communs” (26). Nothing suggests that the silver tawilah described by Cuinet, however, were minted in al-Hasa. Indeed, the anonymous author of the Arabic study cited above notes the existence of silver fawilah dating to 757 AH/1355 AD, and others with the legend: ”There is no God but Allah, Muhammad’, on one side, and the name of Sultan Sulaiman al-Qanuni; the date 926 AH/1519 AD; and the mint name al-Basrah on the other. Certainly in describing the currencies which he found in circulation in al-Hasa in 1912, the Danish traveller B. Raunkiaer did not mention the fawilah (27), and the same applies to a review of commercial conditions in the Gulf region published in 1915 (28). In 1923 R. E. Cheesman found that ”a diligent search lasting through several days produced only two” (29), while a year later J. B. Mackie wrote, ”This coin has now almost disappeared, and it was with some difficulty that I was able to obtain specimens. The story of their disappearance is interesting. For a long time the ’tawila’ had been the only small change coin in the Hasa, and had always been accepted at the rate of 75 to a dollar. The Turks, however, when under Midhat Pasha they introduced their own coinage into the Hasa, had the tawila assayed and found that it contained an appreciable amount of silver, and therefore ruled that the tawila henceforth should be the equivalent of 20 paras, and that 150 of them were to be equal to the dollar. As a result the old tawilas have been hoarded or have been melted down, and have
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D. T. POTTS given way to the comparatively worthless nickel small coins of the Turks" (30). This explanation for the disappearance of the fawilah agrees with that given generally for the disappearance of the larin throughout its area of former use. As Wood wrote in 1936, "Today they are scarce throughout all of those regions where once they were so plentiful. Occasionally a small find comes to light and now and then a few drift into the bazaars. Where have the caravan-loads of them gone? Where have the chestfuls taken by the Mohammedan and European traders gone? What has become of the countless numbers once in Ceylon where elephants loaded down with them
Fig. I. Tawilah no. I, side view.
Fig. 2. Tawilah no. 2, obverse.
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COPPER TAWILAH were captured? Gradually as they ceased to be current or in demand for purposes of trade, they were melted down on account of their fine grade of silver, and the wire coin went into the round coin or into other wire, into jewelry and silver ornaments. Also in later days when they came into the hands of silversmiths and money changers they were not recognized as coins sought after and went their way into the crucible” (31).
;qm 2 b
Fig. 3.
prr&
Tawilah no. 2, reverse.
Fig. 4. Tawilah no. 3, obverse.
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D. T. POTTS Catalogue I: Billon; weight 4.08 g; .03 cm dia., 3.3 cm long; worn, illegible legend on flattened obverse and reverse (Fig. 1) 2: Bronze; weight 4,36 g; .03 cm dia., 3.1 cm long; worn, illegible legend on flattened obverse and reverse (Figs. 2-3) 3: Billon; weight 4.24 g; .03 cm dia., 3.3 cm long; worn, illegible legend on flattened obverse and reverse (Figs. 4-6)
Fig. 5
Tawilah no. 3, reverse
Fig. 6.
Tawilah no. 3, side view.
3 202
COPPER TAWILAH 4: Bronze; weight 2.04 g; 0.3 cm dia., 3.1 cm long; badly corroded piece representing only one half of a tawilah (Figs. 7-8)
5 : Bronze; weight 1.99 g; 0.3 cm dia., 3.1 cm long; worn, illegible legend on one flattened side, some corrosion, represents only half of a tawilah (Figs. 9-10)
6: Bronze; weight 5.30 g; 0.3 cm dia. at one end, with a round, bulbous head ca. 0.8 cm dia. at the other end; badly corroded (Fig. 11)
Fig. 7. Tawilah no. 4,obverse.
Fig. 8. Tawilah no. 4, reverse.
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D. T. POTTS
References I. Palgrave WG. Narrative of a Year’s lourney through Central and Eastern Arabia (1862-631, ii. London: Macmillan, 1865: 179. 2. Philby H St JB. Palgrave in Arabia GJ 109: 1947: 282-285. Cf. the comments of Cheesman RE. The Deserts of Jafura and Jabrin. GJ 65: 1925: 120-122. 3 . Zwemer SM. Arabia: The Cradle of Islam. New York: Revelle, 1900: 115. The Carmathian pedigree of the tawilah was again averred by Zwemer in 1907, when he wrote, “A relic of the old-time empire [Carmathian] still remains in the celebrated tawila or long-
ff 1 1
Fig. 9. Tawilah no. 5 , obverse.
3
I I
rcr
Fig. 70. Tawilah no. 5, reverse.
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COPPER TAWlLAH
Fig. 11. Tawilah no. 6, side view.
bit, a copper coin in the shape of a horseshoe nail and worth about two cents!" See Zwemer SM. Oman and Eastern Arabia. Bull A m Geograph SOC39: 1907: 603. Later, writing of his visit to Hofuf in 1892, Zwemer felt that it had changed little since Palgrave's time, for "Even the Tawilat-al-Hassa, 'the Hassa long bit,' was current. That strange, two-tailed copper bar was worth half an anna and disputed its birthright in the market with rupees and Indian paper and Maria Theresa dollars and Turkish coppers. But how changed the bazaar itself would appear to the ghost of some Carmathian warrior of the ninth century who first handled a 'long bit'! See Zwemer SM. O n the Road to Hassa. In: Zwemer SM & Cantine J. The Golden Milestone: Reminiscences of Pioneer Days Fifty Years Ago in Arabia. New York: Revelle, 1938: 124. 4. Burchardt H. Ost-Arabien von Basra bis Maskat auf Grund eigener Reisen. Z Ges Erdk Berlin 1906: 310. 5. Lorimer JG. Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, 'Oman, and Central Arabia, ii. Calcutta: Government Printing Office, 1908: 670. 6. Allan J. The Coinage of the Maldive Islands with Some Notes on the Cowrie and Larin. NC 4th ser. 12: 1912: 323-324. 7. Allan J. Larin. El': 1936: 18. 8. Wood H. The Gampola Larin Hoard. Numismatic Notes and Monographs 61: 1934: 9-26. 9. For the 17th century, cf. Steensgaard N. The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century: The East India Companies and the Decline of the Caravan Trade. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago, 1974: 420-421. 10. Wood, The Gampola Larin Hoard: 14. Cf. Floor W. Pearl Fish-
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D. T. POTTS ing in the Persian Gulf in 1757. Persica 10: 1982: 220, who called the Iarin “the famous trade coin of peculiar shape and very pure alloy, which originated in Lar and was commonly used in the Gulf area during the 17th century; 1 toman equalled 80 laris, 1 lari equalled mahmudi. The lari deviated from the Persian system of units of account”. Floor quotes a letter addressed by the Director of the Dutch East India Company for Persia to the Company in 1643, about a merchant being sent to Bahrain and Kung to investigate the pearl trade who was going to be carrying 25 000 larins. 11. Cheesman RE. In Unknown Arabia. London: Macmillan, 1926: 102. 12. Walker J. The Arabian Larin. Islamic Culfure 10: 1936: 95-96. 13. Comwall PB. Ancient Arabia: Explorations in Hasa, 1940-41. GI 107: 1946: 41. 14. Vidal FS. The Oasis of Al-Hasa. Dhahran: ARAMCO, 1955: 176n.3. 15. Winder B. Saudi Arabia in the Nineteenth Centuy. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965: 214. 16. Where the article by Allan, cited above in ref. 7, has simply been reprinted without alterations. 17. He wrote, “Commercial transactions are made by means of lead contained in kufs (baskets or sacks) each weighing 6,000 dirhams. When a bargain has been concluded they count a number of baskets and carry them away; this money is not allowed to be exported’. Quoted from Wilson AT. The Persian Gulf. Oxford: Clarendon, 1928: 88-89. 18. Lowick NM. Trade Patterns on the Persian Gulf in the light of recent coin evidence. In: Kouymjian DK, ed. Near Eastern Numismatics, Iconography, Epigraphy and History: Studies in Honor of George C. Miles. Beirut: American University, 1974: 321 and Figs. I, 3. Cf. Lowick NM. Further unpublished Islamic coins of the Persian Gulf. Studia Iranica 11: 1982: 249. 19. The document was translated from the original Arabic by Aramco’s translation division in August, 1960. My sincere thanks are due to Mr. P. Arnot for providing me with a copy of the relevant portion of the text. The author’s name, however, is absent from the pages in my possession. 20. Wood, The Gampola Larin Hoard: 27. 21. Wood, The Gampola Larin Hoard: 16. 22. Walker, The Arabian Larin: 95. Cf. Hussain MK. Copper Taweelah of Hasa. Indian Numismatic Chron 8: 1970: 42, who accepted Walker’s proposal without, however, subjecting it to further scrutiny. 23. Hakima AA. H i s f o y of Eastern Arabia, 1750-1800: The Rise and Deuelopmenf of Bahrain and Kuwait. Beirut: Khayats, 1965: 39. 24. Hakima, H i s f o y of Eastern Arabia: 140.
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COPPER T A W I l A H 25. Hakima, History of Eastern Arabia: 129, 199, Cf. Philipp HJ. Geschichte und Entwicklung der Oase al-Hasa (Saudi Arabien), i.
Saarbriicken: Sozialokonomische Schriften zur Agrarentwicklung, 23: 1976: 66. 26. Cuinet V l a Turquie d'Asie, iii. Paris: Leroux, 1894: 327. 27. Raunkiaer B. Gennem Wahhabiternes land paa Kamelryg. Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1913: 269. 28. Von Sorinj DTE. Handelsverhaltnisse in Oman und im Persischen Golf. aster Mschr Orient 41: 1915: 211. 29. Cheesman, In Unknown Arabia: 102. 30. Mackie JB. Hasa: An Arabian Oasis. GI 63: 1924: 199. 31. Wood, The Gampola Larin Hoard: 26.
Address: D. T. Potts School of Archaeology, Classics and Ancient History University of Sydney N.S.W. 2006 Australia
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