TEHRAN – A total of 25 coins, which date from the Parthian, Abbasid, and Safavid eras, have recently been restored in a museum laboratory in Zanjan.

“The restoration work conducted on these coins included chemical mechanical surface cleaning and stabilization,” a local tourism official announced on Sunday.

According to Encyclopedia Iranica, coins and coinage, standardized units of metal used as a medium of exchange, were first introduced into Persia by the Achaemenid Darius I (521-486 BC).

Before modern times the Persian economy consisted of a conglomeration of regional economies, each with a mint and a currency system geared to local commerce, rather than an integrated national economy. For this reason, it is more sensible to study changes in the output (weight, fineness) of a single mint over time, rather than trying to arrive at an estimation of a nonexistent national norm.

AFM/