Dirham 'Lion and Sun' - anepigraphic Bulghar mint

The anepigraphic Lion and Sun dirhams from Bulghar occupy a genuinely peculiar position in Golden Horde coinage: they carry no mint name, no ruler's name, and no Quranic inscription — extraordinary omissions for a Mongol-administered Islamic mint where religious and dynastic formulae were otherwise near-mandatory. The type is attributed to the reign of Möngke Temür, the first Golden Horde khan to strike coins in his own name, making this transitional, deliberately stripped-down issue all the more anomalous.

The reduced weight against earlier full dirham standards reflects ongoing monetary adjustments across the western steppe in this period. Why the legends were suppressed entirely remains unresolved.