1 Cash - Urk Vartramuka Samarqand, with hole

Samarqand in the late 7th century was caught between competing powers — the residual authority of the Sogdian princes and the advancing Umayyad armies pushing east through Transoxiana. The local coinage of this period, including Smirnova type 657, reflects that instability: issues were struck under rulers whose names survive only in Sogdian script on the coins themselves, with chronologies still disputed among specialists. Vartramuka is a dynastic title rather than a personal name, complicating attribution further.

The central square hole is functional, not decorative — a Chinese monetary convention absorbed through decades of Silk Road commercial contact.