1/2 Bisti anonymous Rhinoceros

Kartli, the eastern Georgian kingdom centered on Tiflis, occupied an almost impossible geopolitical position in the early eighteenth century — caught between Safavid Persia and Ottoman expansion, with Russo-Georgian relations still decades from any formal treaty. Local copper coinage of this period circulated in conditions of chronic monetary disorder, with Persian and Ottoman issues competing alongside indigenous Georgian strikes. The "Rhinoceros" designation in modern references derives from a fanciful animal image long associated with this anonymous type, though the attribution to Kartli itself rests on comparative die studies rather than any surviving mint documentation.