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FRAHN, CHRISTIAN MARTIN (1782-1851), German numismatist and historian, was born at Rostock. He began his Oriental studies under Tychsen at the university of Rostock, and afterwards prosecuted them at Gottingen and Tubingen. He became a Latin master in Pestalozzi's famous institute in 1804, returned home in 18o6, 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.
Frahn wrote over 15o works. Among the more important are: Numophylacium orientale Pototianum (1813) ; De numorum Bulgharicorum fonte antiquissimo (1816) ; Des muhammedanische Miinzkabinet 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); and Nova supplementa ad recensionem Num. Muham. Acad. Imp. Sci. Petropolitanae (1855). His description of some medals struck by the Samanid and Bouid princes (1804) was composed in Arabic because he had no Latin types.