Jani Beg's reign over the Golden Horde (1342–1357) coincided with one of the most catastrophic events in Eurasian history: the Black Death swept through the Pontic steppe in the late 1340s, devastating the very trade networks that made Saray al-Jadida the commercial and administrative hub it was. This coin was struck almost certainly within a year or two of the plague's arrival on the northern Black Sea coast, reportedly carried there via Genoese trading posts at Caffa around 1346.
The Saray al-Jadida mint was among the most prolific in the Horde's monetary system, which makes die-specific attribution — as Sagdeeva's numbering attempts — genuinely useful here.
Jani Beg's reign over the Golden Horde (1342–1357) coincided with one of the most catastrophic events in Eurasian history: the Black Death swept through the Pontic steppe in the late 1340s, devastating the very trade networks that made Saray al-Jadida the commercial and administrative hub it was. This coin was struck almost certainly within a year or two of the plague's arrival on the northern Black Sea coast, reportedly carried there via Genoese trading posts at Caffa around 1346.
The Saray al-Jadida mint was among the most prolific in the Horde's monetary system, which makes die-specific attribution — as Sagdeeva's numbering attempts — genuinely useful here.