Falus

Herat in the 1830s was caught between competing imperial pressures — Qajar Persia besieged the city in 1837, a campaign that drew British diplomatic intervention precisely because Russian influence over Tehran made a Persian seizure of Herat strategically intolerable to British India. The city held out until 1838. That local copper coinage was being produced through this siege period reflects how stubbornly municipal administration continued functioning under duress.