出版社：Middle East Documentation Center (MEDOC), University of Chicago
摘要：Mamluk money is important. Knowledge of what it was and awareness of how it circulated are crucial to the broader economic history of the sultanate, the medieval Mediterranean world, and the contemporary Indian Ocean basin. And as is wellknown, the surviving Mamluk coins—the tangible remains of the Mamluk monetary system—are also important sources for other avenues of historical inquiry. These coins reveal information about epigraphy, heraldry, dynastic claims of legitimation, and political chronology, to list but a few.2 These other uses of Mamluk coins are not addressed in this essay, however, as I concentrate on the field of monetary history proper: that is to say, the study of the surviving coins and other sources that reveal how money circulated and was valued in the Mamluk domains. This decision needs little defense, since interesting coin legends aside, the primary purposes of coins qua money are economic: as a store of value and as a medium of exchange. In what follows, I survey the state of the field of Mamluk monetary history, beginning with a discussion of the surviving numismatic evidence and the issues affecting its use, moving on to comments about the relevant literary and documentary sources concerning Mamluk money, and concluding with an overview of modern scholarship. Throughout the essay, I identify issues facing the field and suggest avenues of continuing inquiry.
