| 表面の説明 |
A stylized frog depicted in high relief, shown from above in a spread-eagle posture with all four limbs fully extended, occupying the majority of the roughly square, irregular flan. The creature's body is rendered in a bold, schematic manner characteristic of early Western Indian coinage, with the head raised and the splayed digits of each foot clearly articulated. The flat, granular field surrounding the device shows natural surface porosity consistent with cast or hammered copper production. No legend or subsidiary symbols are present. |
The city-states and tribal republics of the Saurashtra Peninsula — the Kathiawar region of modern Gujarat — produced a distinctive series of copper coinage in the last centuries BCE, largely outside the administrative reach of the declining Mauryan successor kingdoms. These issues circulated within a trading economy already well-connected to the western Indian Ocean routes, with Saurashtra ports handling goods moving between the subcontinent and the Persian Gulf long before Roman merchants found their way there.
The billon uncertainty here is genuine — some Saurashtra issues show trace silver content that may reflect deliberate alloying or simply the quality of available local copper ore.