The Golden Horde - the Asian Empire that Reached the West

[John Conduitt]

1 hour ago, DLTcoins said:

Just for fun (and because my phone has an Arabic keyboard):

قان العد (qan al-'ad-)

ل منكو تمور (-il Manku Timur)

ضرب (zarb)

[tamgha]

قرم (Qrim)

_____

لا اله الا الله (la ilah illa Allah)

وحده لا شريك (wahdahu la sharik)

له ٦٦٥ (lahu [date 665])

My translation is slightly different but substantially the same:

"the just qan / Manku Timur / was struck / [tamgha] / Qrim // there is no god but Allah / alone, no others with / Him 665".

It's probably slightly different because I was translating from Sagdeeva's Russian translation of the Arabic 🤣

I also translated the wrong one - Sagdeeva 22, which is the same as Sagdeeva 21, but the ٦٦s are mirrored as ٢٢s on that variety for some reason, although still interpreted as 66 not 22.

[Tejas]

I have a number of coins from the Genoese colony of Caffa on the Crimean. 

The first coin is a Dang of Muhammad Uzbeq (1312-1341) with the countermark of the Genoese colony of Caffa, from my collection. (Lunardi, Colonie, C72 var.; Retowski 4 var.) It is one of the nicest examples of this type I have ever seen and I believe that this is an early or possibly the earliest Caffa countermark.

Later the countermark is less impressive and a lot more common. The  second coin is a Dang of Jani Beq (1342-1357) with the Genoese countermark.

Edited December 13, 2022 by Tejas

[Tejas]

I think this is the rarest of the coins from Caffa. It is the only example I have seen so far.

The Genoese produced their own obverse design, but continued to use a Golden Horde reverse. Interestingly, the earliest coins of the Russian principalities to the north followed the same line, they also produced individual obverses with cyrillic legends, but continued to copy Golden Horde reverses. Maybe the people were so used to seeing these Golden Horde coins that this is simply how they expected a coin to look. The Russians also adopted the name Dang and called their coins Denga. Even today, money is called dengi in Russian.

 

Caffa, Genoese colonie in the name of Toqtamish (1376-1395)

Obv.: D/ + COMVNE IANVEM

Rev.: al-sultan/ al-`Adil Tok/tamish khan/ khalad Allah mulkahu

Weight: 1.26g

Lunardi, Colonie, C4 (Timur Qutlugh); Retowski 1. 

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by Tejas

[John Conduitt]

1 hour ago, Tejas said:

I think this is the rarest of the coins from Caffa. It is the only example I have seen so far.

The Genoese produced their own obverse design, but continued to use a Golden Horde reverse. Interestingly, the earliest coins of the Russian principalities to the north followed the same line, they also produced individual obverses with cyrillic legends, but continued to copy Golden Horde reverses. Maybe the people were so used to seeing these Golden Horde coins that this is simply how they expected a coin to look. The Russians also adopted the name Dang and called their coins Denga. Even today, money is called dengi in Russian.

Great coins. That countermark is very strong.

Yes some of the first coins of the Grand Duchy of Moscow were copies of dangs,  made for trade with (or perhaps tribute for) the Golden Horde.

Imitation Dang from the time of Dmitry Donskoi, 1389-1390

Grand Duchy of Muscovy. Silver, 1.43g (1.5 weight). Copy of a Golden Horde Uzbek Khan Dang. Copy of the reverse of Dmitry Donskoi’s Janus denga (GP 111B).

This continued until the Golden Horde broke up during Vasily II's reign. It doesn't seem to have gone beyond that, so perhaps even the badly blundered Arabic was meant for the Golden Horde's benefit.

Vasily II The Blind Denga, 1425-1433

Moscow. Silver, 0.64g. Rider with falcon right. Imitation of Arabic inscription (Metz 11).

Edited December 13, 2022 by John Conduitt

[Tejas]

I also have a number of early Moscovite dengas.

This denga bears the name of Dmitri Donskoi, which is quite rare. It is also in exceptional condition for the type.

 

[Tejas]

Here is another coin of Dmitri Donskoi. The type with the rooster was continued by his son, but this is the early type, which is attributed to Donskoi.

Edited December 13, 2022 by Tejas

[Tejas]

And another type minted for Dmitri Donskoi. His name is legible above the head.

Edited December 13, 2022 by Tejas

[Tejas]

This is a denga of Prince Semyon Vladimirovich of Borisov.

 

[Tejas]

24 minutes ago, John Conduitt said:

Imitation Dang from the time of Dmitry Donskoi, 1389-1390

Grand Duchy of Muscovy. Silver, 1.43g (1.5 weight). Copy of the reverse of Dmitry Donskoi’s Janus denga. Copy of a Golden Horde Uzbek Khan Dang (GP 111B).

I think this type is usually attributed to the principality of Bryansk. I have one too, but I have no picture at hand.

[Tejas]

Boris Konstantinovich of Nizhny Novgorod.

 

 

[Tejas]

This is not a denga, but a Dang. The coin is extremely rare. It was minted by Prince Svyatoslav Titovich, Prince of Karachev

 

[John Conduitt]

13 minutes ago, Tejas said:

I think this type is usually attributed to the principality of Bryansk. I have one too, but I have no picture at hand.

There are similar coins from Bryansk (HPF p.274). Maybe it is, but one side is very similar to (the same as?) the two-faced janus from Moscow (HPF 115 A). It's in HPF (p.42) as 'from the south of the Grand Duchy of Moscow'. If you go far enough south, you get to Bryansk, although I think Bryansk was in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at the time.

[Tejas]

Does anybody know how to attribute this countermark? It is sometimes interpreted as a Chi-Rho, but I don't think that this is correct. It occurs on Golden Horde Puls and is sometimes combined with the countermark of Caffa. Perhaps this countermark was applied by the principality of Theodoro?

 

Edited December 15, 2022 by Tejas

[Tejas]

Here is another exemplar of this countermark:

 

[Tejas]

And here the countermark is combined with the countermark of the Genoese colony of Caffa. Since copper coins circulated only locally, the presence of both countermarks on the same coin might suggest that they were appled by authorities in close proximity, such as Caffa and Theodoro (Mangup)

Edited December 15, 2022 by Tejas

[John Conduitt]

8 hours ago, Tejas said:

Does anybody know how to attribute this countermark? It is sometimes interpreted as a Chi-Rho, but I don't think that this is correct. It occurs on Golden Horde Puls and is sometimes combined with the countermark of Caffa. Perhaps this countermark was applied by the principality of Theodoro?

 

That is a good question. I agree it isn't a Chi-Rho. Ok, the three lines resemble those in ☧, but there are two dots on the central line instead of a P. I don't think Christians would blunder their symbol like that. I can't work out who decided it was a Christogram.

Apparently it isn't in Retowski, which would seem to rule out Crimea, but then it is often referred to as being from Kaffa, including on Numista and Zeno. Perhaps this association comes from its use with the gate countermark.

There are a lot of unexplained star-shaped countermarks on Golden Horde coins. Like this, or this, which seem to be linked to Crimea. This coin has one as part of the design. According to Stephen Album, such countermarks were added in the 1400s for local tax purposes across Central Asia, not just Crimea.

I have a coin with a similar stamp.

9 hours ago, Tejas said:

Here is another exemplar of this countermark:

The symbol stamped below the 'Chi-Rho' on your coin looks quite a lot like this coin, which is thought to be from Crimea too. Apparently, it means 'struck in'.

[Tejas]

Thanks a lot for the information. This is very interesting and helpful. Perhaps future hoards will shed light on the geographical origin of the so called Chi-Rho countermark. 

Speaking of countermarks, here are three coins from my collection with countermarks:

1. Jani Beg with countermark "adil" (meaning "just, fair")

2. Jani Beg with countermark "adil" (meaning "just, fair"). To me this countermark looks very different from that on coin 1, but supposedly it has the same meaning.

3. Jani Beg (?) with two countermarks "adil" and "khan".

I think very little is known when, why and by whom these coins were counterstamped.

 

[John Conduitt]

3 hours ago, Tejas said:

Thanks a lot for the information. This is very interesting and helpful. Perhaps future hoards will shed light on the geographical origin of the so called Chi-Rho countermark. 

Speaking of countermarks, here are three coins from my collection with countermarks:

1. Jani Beg with countermark "adil" (meaning "just, fair")

2. Jani Beg with countermark "adil" (meaning "just, fair"). To me this countermark looks very different from that on coin 1, but supposedly it has the same meaning.

3. Jani Beg (?) with two countermarks "adil" and "khan".

I think very little is known when, why and by whom these coins were counterstamped.

It seems that everyone countermarked Mongol coins - in Kaffa, across Central Asia, and in the Russian principalities, possibly for tax and customs purposes. The problem is assigning each countermark to one of them. The silver in the Russian Principalities seems to have been smaller than Golden Horde dangs, so the Mongol designs were overstamped, while copper was only used further south.

Imitation Golden Horde Dang with ‘Malik’ Countermark, from the time of Dmitry Donskoy, 1385-1395

Kolomna Region. Silver, 0.91g. 'Malik' (ruler) (GP 111B).

[Tejas]

That is a very nice example from Kolomna (Guletzki & Petrunin No. 111A).

I bought most of my Golden Horde coins in Russia on a collectors market on Yelagin island in the north of St. Petersburg. Unfortunately, for some of them I lost the attribution. Can anybody here attribute any of the coins below?

 

 

 

Edited December 17, 2022 by Tejas

[Tejas]

Here is a second group of Dangs that I cannot attribute:

 

 

[John Conduitt]

On 12/17/2022 at 8:54 AM, Tejas said:

 

 

They all look like later khans, Öz Beg (Uzbek) onwards i.e. 1313+.

Top left has a date in the middle of the left-hand image (the reverse) - AH761 - and is Nawruz Khan. The right-hand image (the obverse) needs rotating 90 degrees clockwise. It would be Sagdeeva 290 from Gulistan.

Top right looks like Shadi Beg, from the Bulgar mint.

Bottom left has a date, 759, and is Berdi Beg, Sagdeeva 273 from Gulistan.

Bottom right is Janibeg, Sagdeeva 219 from Saray al-Jadida.

On 12/17/2022 at 8:56 AM, Tejas said:

Here is a second group of Dangs that I cannot attribute:

Top left has a date, 753, which is also Berdi Beg, but Sagdeeva 272 from Gulistan.

Top right is also Sagdeeva 290 (Nawruz Khan).

Bottom left has a date, AH781, and is from the Khwarizm mint. It is an anonymous Qongirat Sufis (Sufids in Khwarizm) issue.

Bottom right is Shadi Beg, Bulghar mint, AH805.

Edited January 12, 2023 by John Conduitt

[Tejas]

Many thanks for the information. This is very helpful!!!

[Tejas]

On 12/16/2022 at 7:11 PM, John Conduitt said:

t seems that everyone countermarked Mongol coins - in Kaffa, across Central Asia, and in the Russian principalities, possibly for tax and customs purposes. The problem is assigning each countermark to one of them. The silver in the Russian Principalities seems to have been smaller than Golden Horde dangs, so the Mongol designs were overstamped, while copper was only used further south.

Here are countermarked coins of the Golden Horde from the Principality of Ryazan:

The two coins in the top row are very early countermarks on Golden Horde coins. The two coins in the bottom row show the very rare tamga with faces. These coins were likely countermarked during the reign of Prince Oleg Ivanovich and date to the 1380s-1390s.

Edited December 18, 2022 by Tejas

[Tejas]

Here are some more coins from Ryazan. Note the bottom coin is a rare issue of the principality of Spassks.

[John Conduitt]

4 minutes ago, Tejas said:

Here are some more coins from Ryazan. Note the bottom coin is a rare issue of the principality of Spassks.

Really interesting collection. It's nice to see the progression.

For Ryazan, I can only offer the common coins of Feodor's son. By this time,  he'd  added a Cyrillic border on the reverse with his name.

Ivan Feodorovich Denga, 1427-1456

Ryazan. Silver, 0.99g. Very large ball-nose tamga on a Golden Horde dang. Quadrangular frame; КNZЗЬ ВЕЛИКI IВАНЪ ФЕД (Seal of Prince Ivan Feodorovich) (HP II, 2340 E).