The bisti was a Georgian copper denomination whose name derived from the Persian "pul," reflecting the layered monetary influences pressing on Kartli from the south and east throughout the seventeenth century. By 1679, the kingdom was operating under persistent Safavid suzerainty following Shah Abbas I's devastation of Tbilisi in 1616, and anonymous copper issues of this type — carrying no ruler's name — were likely a deliberate response to that political pressure, allowing circulation without explicit attribution to a Georgian sovereign.
Anonymous copper from Kartli is notoriously difficult to sequence; KM# 109 sits in a cluster of undated or loosely dated types assigned to a two-year window by die study rather than documentary evidence.
The bisti was a Georgian copper denomination whose name derived from the Persian "pul," reflecting the layered monetary influences pressing on Kartli from the south and east throughout the seventeenth century. By 1679, the kingdom was operating under persistent Safavid suzerainty following Shah Abbas I's devastation of Tbilisi in 1616, and anonymous copper issues of this type — carrying no ruler's name — were likely a deliberate response to that political pressure, allowing circulation without explicit attribution to a Georgian sovereign.
Anonymous copper from Kartli is notoriously difficult to sequence; KM# 109 sits in a cluster of undated or loosely dated types assigned to a two-year window by die study rather than documentary evidence.