Coins of the Silk Road
Updated: Oct 31
Today's post shares more coins than usual. All of these coins are linked to the Mongol khans. Perhaps the best known Mongol leader is Genghis (Chingiz) Khan (circa AD 1162–1227), who unified Mongol tribes to found an Empire. He was proclaimed as the ruler of all Mongols in AD 1206. The Mongols extended their control over the largest contiguous landmass in history in the 13th/14th centuries.
Great Mongols during the reign of Genghis (Chingiz) Khan, 1206-1227, AE jital (4.15g), A-1969, Tye-329, anonymous, with title al-khaqan / al-'adil / al-a'zam on obverse, the 'Abbasid caliph al-Nasir on reverse. According to Stephen Album: "This and other jitals of the period probably contain a small amount of silver and may also have had a very light silver-wash. This type is the only coin that is reasonably common and can be securely assigned to the lifetime of Genghis Khan, though of course, without his name. This type is believed to have been struck AH618-619 / 1221, during the Mongol chase of Mangubarni to the Indus River, when a Mongol military base was established at or near Ghazna."
Æ Jital (23mm, 4.27 g, 3h) Badakhshan mint, undated issue, Album B1972
Islamic, Mongols, Great Khans, probably struck circa 618 until the early 620s, thus during Chingiz (Genghis) Khan’s lifetime AH 602-624 / AD 1206-1227
Disclosure: while interesting as artifacts, none of the coins in today's post are classically beautiful, they are mostly poorly struck, chipped, worn, off-center, and perhaps reflect the harsh times in which they were minted. However, if you look at enough of these, a certain appeal grows in appreciation of not only the history but also the die maker's calligraphy.
The Mongol Empire
A map of the Mongol Khanates AD 1300-1405 with the largest extent outlined in orange. Public Domain image via WikiMedia Commons.
Ghengis Khan and the end of the Khwarezm Empire
The next coins come from Kurzuwan, a city of the Khwarezmian Empire, and date from the reign of its penultimate ruler, ʿAlāʾ al‑Dīn Muḥammad II (reigned AD 1200 to 1220), and his son.
The Khwārizmshāhs were a Turkic dynasty founded by Anūshtegin, a Turkic slave soldier whom the Seljuq sultans appointed governor of Khwarezm in the late eleventh century. His descendants ruled first as Seljuq vassals and then as independent sovereigns. By Muḥammad’s reign they controlled most of Iran and Central Asia.
In 1218 the governor of Otrar, on the Syr Darya, massacred a trade caravan of about 450 men sent under Genghis Khan’s protection, probably with Muḥammad’s approval, and Muḥammad then had one of Genghis Khan’s envoys executed. Genghis Khan crossed the Tien Shan and invaded in 1219. His armies took Bukhara and Samarkand in 1220.
Muḥammad fled west and died on an island in the Caspian Sea, probably in the winter of 1220 to 1221, while the Mongols went on to destroy Taliqan, Kurzuwan, Bamiyan and other cities. Within two years the empire was gone. Contemporary chroniclers report deaths in the millions; modern historians treat those figures with caution.
For more, see Farrokh, K., and M. M. Khorasani, “The Mongol Invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire: The Fierce Resistance of Jalal‑e Din,” Medieval Warfare 2, no. 3 (2012): 43 to 49.
The Saffarids
This jital is from Nimruz in southern Afghanistan ruled by the Nasrid dynasty, a vassal of the Khwarezmian empire. The Nasrids were the ruling family of Sistan, the basin of the lower Helmand river on today’s Iran–Afghanistan border, from the eleventh to the early thirteenth century. Their capital was Zaranj. They were a later branch of the Saffarids, the dynasty that Yaʿqūb b. al‑Layth founded in Sistan in the ninth century. Historians call them the third Saffarid line or the Maliks of Nimruz. Nimruz is an old name for Sistan, and malik means king.
Tāj al-Dīn Ḥarb of Sistan accepted Muḥammad II, the Khwārizmshāh, as his overlord in 603 AH (1206 to 1207 CE), after the Ghurid sultan Muʿizz al‑Dīn was murdered. Ḥarb’s jitals from these years record the chain of authority: they name the caliph al‑Nāṣir and the Khwārizmshāh Muḥammad as his superiors, and Ḥarb himself as the ruler who struck the coin.
Kurzuwan Siege Coin
This next coin was struck by an anonymous "Malik", a city governor who remained in Kurzuwan with the city under siege by Ghengis Khan weeks before the city was taken and destroyed by the Mongol army. Stephen Album describes this coin as "one of the very few identifiable siege coins of the Islamic world". The siege lasted for a few weeks, the city fell in July 1221.
This coin was issued during the reign of Muhammad's son Jalal-ud-Din. He was the last Shah of the Khwarezm Empire as he fought back against Ghengis Khan and had some victories over the Mongols after his father's death in 1220. He occupied the Kurram valley (north-west Pakistan) and issued coins from 1222-24, and became a legendary fighter for his persistence in resisting and challenging the Mongols until his death sometime near AD 1231/2.
This next coin is the less common type of this coin (Zeno 90342), one dated Jumada I (June-July AD 1221) - the city fell during the month of Jumada so this coin was minted days before.
and a late Khwarezm Shahs coin from the son Jalal al-Din
The Black Death spreads from Crimea to Europe
About a century later, this is a coin of Uzbek Khan, counter-marked "khan" after his death - a worn little coin of 0.95g.
Stephen Album suggests that this might have been countermarked by ‘Abd Allah Khan, who ruled 762-771, with the caveat that this remains theoretical and unproven. These coins may have been issued for as many as 30-40 years with a fixed date. (Ref: Album A-2025G, host coin Zeno #166658)
Caffa (today: Feodosija, Ukraine) is often described as the first European controlled city to be afflicted with the Black Death in AD 1346 - it is cited as an early example of biological warfare. Caffa was a Silk Road trading post on the northern shore of the Black Sea in Mongol territory controlled by Genoa. This account comes from Gabriele de’ Mussi (writing circa AD 1348/9), who tells of the Jani Beg's siege of Caffa in which they catapulted plague infected bodies into the city - an interesting article here at cdc.gov.
This coin is from Jani Beg (son of Öz Beg/Uzbek), the year of his first siege of the Genoese city of Caffa (1343 to 1344); the siege during which plague struck came in 1346.
![Golden Horde, Jani Beg, 1341-1357, AR dirham (1.54g), struck only at Saray al-Jadida (“New Saray”), AH743 (AD 1342/3), ruler's name in Uighur together with his titles in Arabic Obv: Sultan, the Just, Jani Beg, Jalal al-din Mahmud خلد الله ملكه [...] السلطان العادل Rev: minted in Saray al-Jadida 743 ضرب سراي الجديد في سنة ٧۴۳ Ref: Sagdeeva 217, Album A-2027](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/62a3d9_9f33414766914fbfb1bc938b33447d9c~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_980,h_493,al_c,q_90,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/62a3d9_9f33414766914fbfb1bc938b33447d9c~mv2.png)
Here are several other coins for Jani Beg - the first and AE Pul:
An article this year offered a revised view based on additional sources, of the spread of the plague. See Hanna Barker, "Laying the Corpses to Rest: Grain, Embargoes, and Yersinia pestis in the Black Sea, 1346–48", Speculum, The journal of the Medieval Academy of America, Volume 96, Number 1, January 2021, University of Chicago Press
These are some later coins of Muhammad Bulaq Khan (Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad), a Golden Horde khan who reigned from AH 771 to 782 (AD 1369 to 1380), largely as the puppet of the general Mamai. He came to the throne about twelve years after the death of Jani Beg in 1357.
Milan in control of Kaffa
Moving again a century later, a coin from Caffa, now with Milan in control of Genoa and Caffa.
This coin was issue under the rule of Filippo Maria Visconti. The Visconti family took control of Genoa (and with it Caffa) for Milan.
References
Peter Jackson: The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion (Yale University Press, 2017)
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