Baybars came to power through the assassination of his predecessor Qutuz, just weeks after the Mamluk victory over the Mongols at Ain Jalut in 1260 — a battle Baybars himself helped engineer. His seventeen-year reign saw aggressive monetary reform alongside relentless military campaigning, dismantling the remaining Crusader states piece by piece. Fractional silver of this type circulated in markets where the full dirham was too large for petty transactions, and surviving pieces are disproportionately scarce relative to full-weight issues, likely lost to the attrition of everyday commerce.
Baybars came to power through the assassination of his predecessor Qutuz, just weeks after the Mamluk victory over the Mongols at Ain Jalut in 1260 — a battle Baybars himself helped engineer. His seventeen-year reign saw aggressive monetary reform alongside relentless military campaigning, dismantling the remaining Crusader states piece by piece. Fractional silver of this type circulated in markets where the full dirham was too large for petty transactions, and surviving pieces are disproportionately scarce relative to full-weight issues, likely lost to the attrition of everyday commerce.