Christian Martin Joachim Frähn (4 June 1782 – 16 August 1851), German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n numismatist and historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

, was born at Rostock

Rostock

Rostock -Early history:In the 11th century Polabian Slavs founded a settlement at the Warnow river called Roztoc ; the name Rostock is derived from that designation. The Danish king Valdemar I set the town aflame in 1161.Afterwards the place was settled by German traders...

, Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Mecklenburg-Schwerin was a duchy in northern Germany created in 1348, when Albert II of Mecklenburg and his younger brother John were raised to Dukes of Mecklenburg by King Charles IV...

.

Frähn began his Oriental studies under Tychsen

Oluf Gerhard Tychsen

Oluf Gerhard Tychsen was a German Orientalist and Hebrew scholar. He is known today as one of the founding fathers of Islamic numismatics....

 at the university of Rostock

University of Rostock

The University of Rostock is the university of the city Rostock, in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.Founded in 1419, it is the oldest and largest university in continental northern Europe and the Baltic Sea area...

, and afterwards continued them at Göttingen and Tübingen. He became a Latin master in Pestalozzi

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was a Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer who exemplified Romanticism in his approach....

's famous institute in 1804, taught at Rostock as a Privatdozent

Privatdozent

Privatdozent or Private lecturer is a title conferred in some European university systems, especially in German-speaking countries, for someone who pursues an academic career and holds all formal qualifications to become a tenured university professor...

 in 1806, and in the following year was chosen to fill the chair of Oriental languages in the Russian university of Kazan. Though in 1815 he was invited to succeed Tychsen at Rostock, he preferred to go to St Petersburg, where he became director of the Asiatic museum and councillor of state. He died at St Petersburg.

Frähn wrote over 150 works. Among the more important are:

• Numophylacium orientale Pototianum (1813)
• De numorum Bulgharicorum fonte antiquissimo (1816)
• Des muhammedanische Münzkabinet des asiatischen Museum der kaiserl. Akademie der Wissenschaf ten zu St Petersburg (1821)
• Numi cufici ex variis museis selecti (1823)
• Notice d'une centaine d'ouvrages arabes, lac., qui manquent en grande pantie aux bibliotheques de l'Europe (1834)
• Nova supplementa ad recensionem Num. Muham. Acad. Imp. Sci. Petropolitanae (1855)

His description of some medals struck by the Samanid

Samanid

The Samani dynasty , also known as the Samanid Empire, or simply Samanids was a Persian state and empire in Central Asia and Greater Iran, named after its founder Saman Khuda, who converted to Sunni Islam despite being from Zoroastrian theocratic nobility...

 and Bouid princes (1804) was composed in Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

 because he had no Latin types.
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