Crusader Coin - AR Denier - Bohemond III - Circa (1163-1201)

Denomination:  AR Denier                                                         

Date:  1163 - 1201 BCE

Mint: Antioch

Mount:  14K coin bezel 

Description: Obverse: Helmeted bust left of knight wearing chainmail with crescent pointing up in left field and 5-pointed star in right field, Legend “BOAMVNDUS”. Reverse: Cross with crescent top right field pointing left. Legend “ANTIOCNIA”.

History: Bohemond III was a son of Constance of Antioch (Princess regnant of the Principality of Antioch, a crusader state, by her first husband Raymond of Poitiers.  Bohemond's father was killed at the Battle of Inab in 1149, and his mother ruled as regent until he was old enough to rule on his own. Constance, however, married a second time, to Raynald of Châtillon, who ruled as Prince of Antioch until being taken captive and imprisoned in Aleppo in 1160 (he remained there until 1176). Bohemond was by now of legal age to succeed, but Constance refused; King Baldwin III of Jerusalem intervened and declared Bohemond ruler of the principality. In 1163 Constance asked the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia for aid to maintain her rule; the citizens of Antioch then rioted and exiled her. She died later that year, allowing Bohemond to take full control.

This coin was minted for the Principality of Antioch, a state established during the first crusade that was at various times, and for most of its history, a vassal to Constantinople, The Kingdom of Jerusalem, or the Kingdom of Armenia before being conquered by Muslim forces under Baibars, the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt. The coin and its distinctive abstract portrait of a crusader knight was minted and issued during the reign of Bohemond III, prince of Antioch from 1163 to 1201 AD. The Principality of Antioch was founded in 1098 by Bohemond of Toranto (Bohemond I), an Italian crusader prince who led a Christian army in a siege of the Syrian city of Antioch, held at the time by Seljuk Turks.  

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