Tanka - Timur with Mahmud Khan Type 3 - Damghan mint

Struck at Damghan during the brief window when Timur governed nominally through the Chingisid puppet Mahmud Khan, this type reflects a calculated political fiction. Timur, barred by steppe convention from taking the khan's title himself — reserved exclusively for Genghis Khan's male-line descendants — installed Mahmud Khan as a legitimizing figurehead while retaining all real power. The dual-name formula was not courtesy; it was constitutional necessity within the Turco-Mongol world.

Damghan, an ancient staging post on the Khorasan road, served as a regional administrative node during Timur's campaigns through northern Iran in precisely these years.