Ghiyath al-Din Kaykhusraw II issued three main types of silver coinage. The first, struck between 634 and 638 H (1236-1240 AD), was conventionally epigraphical, with the caliph’s name on the obverse and the ruler’s on the reverse. From 638 to 641 the famous “lion and sun” type revealed the full extent of Kaykhusraw’s royal pride, and after his defeat at the Battle of Köse Dagh the sultan took refuge in Islamic piety and religious consolations to boost his waning power.

Kaykhusraw had married the daughter of the Ayyubid ruler of Aleppo, al-‘Aziz Muhammad, but he fell passionately in love, and married as his second wife the Princess Rusudan, daughter of Queen Tamara of Georgia, who is believed to have exerted a powerful influence over her husband. The romantic view has been that the lion and sun on this dirham represented the radiant personality of Rusudan, or that it may have been her zodiacal sign, Leo.

This coin was struck before the Mongol approach was being perceived as a serious threat. It is quite likely that the lion and sun on the coin’s obverse were intended to demonstrate to Kaykhusraw’s illiterate subjects the might of the Rum Saljuq state and its ruler, because in astrological terms the sun in Leo represents both power and majesty.

If that was the truth it would certainly have been a case of hubris, because not very long after it was issued the Rum Saljuqs, like so many of their neighbours, were to be subjugated by the Mongols. It is interesting to note that the Rum Saljuq rulers were the first to introduce the lion and sun design to their coinage. The Ilkhan descendants of the Mongols then placed it on a copper fals nearly a hundred years later. After that it became a popular device with which to ornament the copper coins of eastern Anatolia, and particularly Iran where it eventually became the country’s national symbol.