[or Frahn, Frähn; Christian Martin]. German numismatist and historian, born at Rostock. He began his Oriental studies under Tychsen at the university of Rostock, and afterwards prosecuted them at Göttingen and Tübingen. He became a Latin master in Pestalozzi’s famous institute in 1804, returned home 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.
Frahn wrote over 150 works. Among the more important are the following: Numophylacium orientale Pototianum (1813); De numorum Bulgharicorum fonte antiquissimo (1816); Das muhammedanische Münzkabinet des asiatischen Museum der kaiserl. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu St. Petersburg (1821); Numi cufici ex variis museis selecti (1823); Notice d’une centaine d’ouvrages arabes, &c., qui manquent en grande partie aux bibliothèques 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.
