1 Cash - Mastich-Unash Samarqand

Samarqand in the late 7th century was caught between two expanding powers — the Arab Umayyad armies pushing northeast from Khorasan and the residual Sogdian political structures that had governed the Zerafshan valley for centuries. Mastich-Unash ruled during precisely this pressure point, and coinage from his reign reflects the transitional moment: local Sogdian monetary tradition persisting just years before Arab administrative conquest effectively ended indigenous Samarqandian kingship. Smirnova's catalogue remains the primary scholarly framework for attributing these issues, which survive in small numbers largely from controlled excavation contexts in Uzbekistan rather than the trade market.