ISLAMIC, ARTUQIDS OF KAYFA
Nasir al-Din Mahmud
AD 1200-1222
AE Dirhem. 5.03g, 25.5mm
MINTED: Amid mint, AH 617 (AD 1220/1)
REF: Spengler & Sayles 18; Album 1823.3
OBVERSE: Double-headed eagle with wings spread; name and titles of Nasir al-Din Mahmud within petals of quadrilobe; continuation of name in outer margin.
REVERSE: Name and titles of Ayyubid overlord in two lines; all within hexagram; mint formula and AH date in angles of hexagram; name and titles of Abbasid caliph in outer margins.
 
Notes:
According to Wayne Sayles, the double-headed eagle employed on this type represents the imperial emblem of the Artuqids of Hisn Kayfa, and as astrological motifs were popular in the Islamic world at the time, it may have served a second purpose of alluding to the Gemini twins, the Day House of the planet Mercury.  Some other scholars on the other hand believe the bird is not an eagle but a falcon or rooster, representing the sun or the Sultan.   
 
Historical Notes:
The Artuqids were a Turkoman muslim dynasty in Upper Mesopotamia (al-Jazira) who flourished between 11th and 13th centuries.  Various branches of the dynasty ruled from the cities of Mardin, Hisn Kayfa, Amid, and Khartpert, originally under the suzerainty of the Seljuk Empire, then alternately as vassals and rivals of the Zengids, and in the case of the Mardin branch, eventually under the Ayyubid sultans and the Seljuks of Rum.