Michael L. Bates (American Numismatic Society)

Submitted:  Fri, 10 Oct 97 18:39:28 

Michael L. Bates
Curator of Islamic Coins 
American Numismatic Society
155th Street and Broadway
New York, NY 10032-7598_
USA

Phones: 212 234-3130, ext. 222
FAX:    212 234-3381
Email: bates@amnumsoc.org

DESCRIPTION OF YOUR WORK

I am a specialist on the coinage of the Islamic world, especially on the 
earlier periods and on the Arab/Iranian world, although I have to deal with 
everything.  At the Society my responsibilities include India and East Asia 
as well as the Middle East.

I am trained as a historian, with a Ph.D. from the Department of Near 
Eastern Studies, University of Chicago. My thesis, unpublished still, was on 
the Ayyubid conquest and rule of Yemen, and the little states they 
encountered there.  My scholarly publications have mostly been on Umayyad 
coinage, but now I'm beginning (for some years now, actually) to work on the 
Abbasids, especially the ninth century.  I have a manuscript in progress, 
awaiting final revision, on the honors accorded to high dignitaries of the 
Abbasid caliphate, including titles and being named on coins (which went 
together, in fact).

At present I'm working on a very exciting article on al-Mu`tasim's seizure 
of the caliphate, and the relationship of that to the origin of the mihna.  
It has nothing to do with coins at all.