Offa king of Mercia 757 793 gold dinar copy of dinar of the Abassid Caliphate 774

Mercian gold dinar imitating a gold dinar of Abbasid caliph al-Mansur, copying the Arabic inscription. The script was copied without understanding it, possibly without even realizing it represents writing, but it is good enough to reconstruct the reading of the coin it was copied from; this was apparently struck in AH 156 (AD 773/4), which date thus serves as a terminus post quem for the Anglo-Saxon copy. The inscription OFFA REX was inserted upside down into the three central lines reading Muhammadu / rasulu / llahi.

literature:

• C.E. Blunt, 'The coinage of Offa' in Anglo-Saxon coins (London, Methuen, 1961)
• L. Webster and J. Backhouse, The making of England: Anglo-S, exh. cat. (London, The British Museum Press, 1991)