Hyperpyrus of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos (1081-1118), where the obverse is occupied by the representation of the enthroned Christ while the reverse depicts the emperor being blessed by the hand of God. Alexios I was unable to stop the decline of the gold coinage during the first decades of his reign, due to the particularly turbulent political situation that prevailed in the empire. However, after his stabilization on the throne of Constantinople, he proceeded with a brave monetary reform (1092). His main concern was to restore the purity of the Byzantine gold coinage, that is, to establish a gold coin of good quality and metal content. He thus introduced the gold hyperpyron and managed to restore the Byzantine currency as an international unit of exchange. The content of the new currency in carats of pure gold was only 21-20.5, although its weight was about 4.5 g, the same as the istamen. It had a convex shape, a thin petal and a diameter larger than the solidus and the istamen, about 27-30 mm. After Alexios’s reform, an economic recovery was observed in the empire.

Alexios I Komnenos (1081-1118)

Alexios I Komnenos was the founder of the Komnenos dynasty. He ascended the throne of Constantinople with the support of the military aristocracy. He successfully confronted the main enemies of the empire at that time, the Normans and the Pechenegs. He made a series of reforms of a centralizing nature in the state administration. During his reign, the First Crusade took place and Alexios was unable to prevent the creation of an independent Crusader state in Palestine. Alexias, his biography, written by his daughter Anna Komnene, idealizes Alexios, but is an important historical source.