Islamic Lead Seals

New previously unpublished lead seals of the Umayyad conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. Some of the problematic or tentative interpretations.

For more on Umayyad lead seals: http://www.andalustonegawa.50g.com/Seals.html

More on the subject see articles at:

https://www.academia.edu/2324901
https://www.academia.edu/25737591
https://www.academia.edu/25602849
https://www.academia.edu/16345783
https://www.academia.edu/25765145
https://www.academia.edu/2324752
https://www.academia.edu/2327699
https://www.academia.edu/2324745
https://www.academia.edu/2399361

Talks on the subject of the conquest seals:

https://www.academia.edu/24497373
https://www.academia.edu/17617221
https://www.academia.edu/5751302

A lead seal of Umayyad Palestine dealing with possible statute labor.

This Egyptian papyrus of governor Qurra b. Sharik came to my notice too late, after the publication of this article. By content, it is probably an indirect manifestation of statute labor. That of carpenter sent from Egypt to Damascus to work in the construction of its mosque, this by order of the said governor, but all at the expense of the people of Aphrodito seemingly as part of due taxation. This same governor was notoriously harsh in his taxation methods, even said to have re-imposed the full jizya tax on ALL the mawali,  converted or not! Indicating clearly the subservient nature of all mawali. The dominant elite factor was here clearly that of Arab ethnicity and not religious affiliation. In short, for this governor conversion could not lead to a loss in tax revenue.

"[ ((unintelligible )) ἐν ὀνόματι τοῦ Θεοῦ Κορρα υἱὸ(ς) Σζεριχ] ὑ[μῖ]ν τοῖς ἀπὸ κώμη(ς) Ἀφροδιτ(ώ).
In the name of God. Qurrah b. Sharik, to you, the people of the village of Aphrodito.
[παράσχ(ετε) λ(ό)γ(ῳ) μισθοῦ (καὶ) δαπάνη(ς) πρίστου] εἰ(ς) κάτεργ(ον) τ\οῦ/ μασγιδ(α) Δαμασκ\οῦ/
Pay for the wages and supplies of a sawyer for work on the mosque of Damascus
[μη(νῶν) ϛ ἓξ ἐπὶ τ(ῆς) παρούση(ς) ἰνδ(ικτίονος) ὀγδόης] ἀρ(ί)θ(μια) νο(μίσματα) δ τέσσαρα μό(να). ἐγρά(φη) μη(νὸς) Ἁθὺ(ρ) ζ ἰνδ(ικτίονος) [η]
for 6 = six months in the present 8th indiction 4 = four nominal solidi only. Written the 7th Hathyr, 8th indiction."

See at: http://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.lond;4;1411

Also of note is the indiction dating being used as it was being used during the same period in the transitional Latin coinage of Ifriquiya and al-Andalus under Musa b. Nusayr's governorship.

I am fully indebted to Peter  Philps for pointing out the above.

For more on Umayyad seals: http://www.andalustonegawa.50g.com/Seals.html

The lecture will be an update of the article: "Nuevos documentos sobre la Conquista Omeya de Hispania: Los precintos de plomo,  The new evidence for the Umayyad conquest of Hispania: the lead seals." احتام فتح الاندلس

See at:  https://www.academia.edu/2324901/
or at:  http://www.andalustonegawa.50g.com/Seals.html

The objective of the lecture is to first correct some previous readings and some of the interpretations of function of the same and secondly to present some of the more important new seals that have been registered since the above article was published. We will try to argument their relation to the Umayyad conquest of Hispania and  the governors period of al-Andalus and to contrast them with the surprising number of new ones from the 'Greater Syria' area that have since appeared. The other objective of the talk is to publicly put to critical test, in front of a specialized audience, the readings and interpretations made of both sets of seals.
Finaly, but urgently,  to draw the attention of archeologist dealing with sites of the early Islamic period to the importance of these lead seals and the need to use electronic detection in their final cribs so as to avoid sending this vital information to the dump as had been done for many decades in Ruscino and most probably in many of the numerous other digs covering the vast area of the early Islamic period.

This article contains the first published evidence of two different lead seals from the Umayyad conquest of Hispania. Material evidence previously unknown for this period and area.
The description of the first seal under nº1 Precintos p.706-7 a serious error was made by the author in the second word of the first area which was read alternatively as tayib “good”, طيب , or  saliḥ “valid”, صلح , instead of sulh “peace treaty”, صلح. This significant misreading was later corrected by the same author in: Nuevos documentos sobre la conquista Omeya de Hispania: los precintos de plomo, published in:  711 ARQUELOGIA E HISTORIA ENTRE DOS MUNDOS. Vol1 pg.151.2 & fig.6. This same seal was in this article attributed to governor al-Samḥ ibn Malik al Jawlaí, see at: https://www.academia.edu/2324901/

For more on Umayyad lead seals: http://www.andalustonegawa.50g.com/Seals.html

A new lead seal in the name of the Umayyad ruler 'Abd al-Malik b. Marwān  . Text, in three lines, can be translated as "for (or to) 'Abd /al-Malik Emir / of the Believers." This rare Umayyad lead seal with legends only on one face is one of the earliest known that can be clearly dated as of the period of the prominent Umayyad Emir, ' Abd al-Malik ibn Marwān, 65-86 H / 685-705 CE. It puts light on the very important titular problem that of "Emir of the believers", that is of ALL the 'believers' inclusive of  Ahl al-Kitab and others (Zoroastrians), versus that of "Khalifat Allah". This last only appears during the whole Umayyad period, and then solely as a generic, in just in a couple of years, never to reappear again, before the 77h monetary reform, and at that on scarce completely secondary type coins (in bronze and silver, NEVER ON GOLD!). These scarce bronze and silver coins both contain serious epigraphic errors in the actual word khalifa and the dates! These observations and the absolute scarcity of such secondary coinage indicate that they were not struck under any meaningful political or official administrative control. This should make one reasonably doubt the blanket use of "Khalifate" as it has retrospectively been put over the Rashidun and Umayyad rulers for which there is no contemporary material epigraphic evidence. It could very well be an accepted Abbasid period retrospective put over by the mainly classical Arabic Sunnie sources. Its near-infinite repetition has been taken up uncritically as factual by a long line of historians, including most modern ones.
See a complete discussion, still under construction, on this fundamental titular problem, with the due material references,  p. 15-26.. in: https://www.academia.edu/34615447/SEALS_AND_COINS_OF_THE_UMAYYAD_CONQUEST_OF_HISPANIA_711-755.
For more on Umayyad seals: http://www.andalustonegawa.50g.com/Seals.html

Lead seal in the name of´Abd Allāh as Emir of the Believers dated 131h  This unique lead seal with the title "emir of the believers", dated 131h and the generic use of the name 'Abd Allāh could be of its time wise contemporary Marwān II (127/132h), the last Umayyad ruler. Nevertheless, despite this reasonable 'could be', its peculiar content could make one harbor some doubts as to this first facile attribution.....
This end of times seal significantly stands astride the imperial demise of what H. Kennedy has aptly called THE GREAR ARAB CONQUEST (one very tightly articulated around that specific ethnicity) and the advent of the Abbasid/Islamic empire. One, in contrast, multiethnic and from which, there on, we have the rapid development of the foundations of the Islamic as we have come to know it.

For more on Umayyad lead seals: http://www.andalustonegawa.50g.com/Seals.html

A lead seal of Yusuf b.´Umar al-Thakafí dated 123h 
Dated lead seals of the Umayyad period are scarce, with but very few of them known. The present seal is of importance not just because it is rare material evidence of the period but more so because it was issued by an important actor, who consecutively was the first governor of Yemen and then of Irāq during a tumultuous period covering the dramatic last decade, and more, of a rapidly collapsing Umayyad empire.

Error in the bibliography.
Ibrahim. T (1999) should be: "Un precinto a nombre de ´Anbasa ibn Suhaym al-Kalbí, gobernador de al-Andalus, 103-107/721-725", Al-Qantara, p. 191-193.

For more on Umayyad seals: http://www.andalustonegawa.50g.com/Seals.html