Die Fundmünzen von Harrān und ihr Verhältnis zur lokalen Geschichte
During the 1940s and 1950s D. Storm Rice and Seton Lloyd, together with the Turkish Antiquity Authority, undertook archaeological excavations in Harrān. With the exception of two preliminary reports and a few articles, the excavations remain largely unpublished. The 264 coins constitute an independent source on the regional, political and economic history of Harrān. For the Umayyad and early Abbasid period, the coins constitute a source on the pattern of the city's regional integration. Two-thirds of the coins date from the Ayyubid period. The circulation is characterized by a competition of different coinages: first, those which were struck for the political entities to which Harrān belonged; and second, imported coins, i.e. of Byzantine and Rūm-Saljūq origin. Third, copper coins from Northern Syria, despite the fact that the Diyār Mudar and Northern Syria belong to different branches of the Ayyubid dynasty. Two dirhams of the Saljūq prince al-Malik Mas‘ūd, who resided in Mosul between 504/1111 and 511/1118, are historical documents of importance.
Medieval Ḥarrān: Studies on its Topography and Monuments, I
No attempt has been made yet to collect the widely scattered information on the history and topography of Ḥarrān for the period from the Arab conquest in A.D. 639 until the destruction of the city by the Mongols in A.D. 1260. Such a compilation would form a useful sequel to the monograph of Adam Mez, which covers the period up to the Arab conquest and to Chwolsohn's work on the Sabians which, despite its venerable age, remains the standard work on the subject. Several monographs on Ḥarrān were written during the Middle Ages but no Mss of them have so far been discovered. A good deal of material can be collected from historical and geographical texts. Of these none is more detailed or more worthy of attention than that of Ibn Shaddād. The account of this writer, available so far only in Ms, is contained in a chapter of his Survey of Syria and the Jazīra.
III.—Medieval finds at Al Mina in North Syria
Reports on the excavations at Al Mina during the two seasons 1936 and 1937 have already appeared in the Antiquaries Journal , and Sir Leonard Woolley has now invited me to give a more detailed account of the finds dating from the medieval period. The Board of Education granted me special leave from my duties at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and I was thus able to assist at the excavations during the whole of the 1937 campaign.