Made in Arabic
sequin
السِّكّة
A dinar struck in Syria after ʿAbd al-Malik made the coinage purely Arabic: no image at all, only writing in Kufic script. The die a dinar was struck with was called sikka. Italian took it as zecca, the name of Venice's mint, and called its gold coin the zecchino; from it came English sequin, now the small shiny disc sewn on clothes.
- Instrument
- an Umayyad gold dinar, Syria, 698–99
- Written on it in Arabic
- On its face: «There is no god but God alone, He has no associate»; on its back: «In the name of God, this dinar was struck in the year seventy-nine».
The path between languagessikka → zecca → zecchino → sequin
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, ملكٌ عامّ
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