Een Nieuwe Vondst Van Een Fibula Gemaakt Van Een Almoh Adis Che Dinar En Twee Vondsten Van Pseudo-Muntfibula]s Van Almohadisch Type

In two papers in this journal attention was drawn to brooches made of 11th-13th century gold coins (largely Almohad dinars and half dinars) and of local imitations in gold of Almohad coins in the coastal areas of the northern Netherlands and northern Germany (Koers et al., 1990; Lanting & Molema, 1993/1994). In this paper three recent discoveries are presented (fig. 1). The first one is a brooch made of an Almohad dinar/ dobla found during an archaeological excavation at the Haukenwarf near Oldorf, Ldkr. Friesland in Germany, in a 12th/13th century context (fig. 2). The dobla was minted for caliph Idris I al-Ma’mun (1227-1232), who reigned only in the Andalusian part of the Almohad empire (fig. 3). The reverse of the brooch shows a cross made of two narrow strips of a gold-silver alloy. The second find is a brooch made of a local imitation in gold of a dobla of Almohad type. It was found by a metal detector user on a construction site near Heerenveen, province of Friesland, the Netherlands (fig. 4). The back of this brooch is decorated with a cross in low relief, made of silver, closely related to the anchor-crosses on the coin brooches of Scheemda, Leeuwarden and Veenklooster (Koers et al., 1990; Lanting & Molema, 1993/1994). The third find is a brooch made of lead-tin alloy, found by a metal detector user in a soil dump, excavated at an unknown locality in the inner city of Dokkum, province of Friesland, the Netherlands. This brooch clearly is a copy of a dobla of Almohad type, with its square-in-circle motive, and its short wigglely lines imitating Arabic script (fig. 5). A lily-cross in high-relief on its front side is parallelled by a similar cross in gold filigree on the coin brooch of Itzingaborg near Norden in northern Germany, made of a masse d’or of the French king Philippe IV, minted between 1285 and 1314 (Berghaus, 1958, Tafel 3: 24). Late 13th-century dates are proposed for the two coin brooches of Heerenveen and Dokkum. Although the number of ‘Almohad’ coin brooches is small, two subgroups seem to be present: an eastern group with crosses made of metal strips, and a western group with crosses made of metal wire on the reverse. Local imitations have sofar only been found in the Dutch province of Friesland (fig. 6). The presence of this small number of Almohad coins in the northern Netherlands and northern Germany is striking. Historical sources make clear that thousands of Almohad coins were imported into England in the 12th-13th century. Despite that, no Almohad coin has been found in England, sofar (Grierson, 1974, p. 391).