Eight Islamic Glass Weights, circa 8th/11th Century A.D.

each stamped with an Arabic inscription.

For related examples from Egypt see W.M. Flinders Petrie, Glass Stamps and Weights, London, 1926, pls. XIII-XXIII; also see A. H. Morton, A Catalogue of Early Islamic Glass Stamps in the British Museum, London, 1985. The function of such discs has long been under debate. First seen to be a token of security, they later, in the mid-19th Century, were thought of as coin weights and by the end of the 19th Century a new study suggested that at least some should be viewed as amulets for religious proaganda. For a summary of the dabate over their function see A.H. Morton's article in A. Contadini, Fatimid Art in the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1998, pp. 104-108.