Pul Zafar countermark

Countermarked coinage of the Golden Horde from this decade reflects the political fragmentation following the death of Berdibek in 1359, which triggered two decades of succession chaos — the so-called "Great Troubles" during which the khanate cycled through more than twenty rulers. Local administrators and regional governors applied countermarks like this one to validate or reauthorize coins whose issuing authority had become politically inconvenient or simply defunct. The host coin beneath the stamp matters as much as the mark itself.