Æ Unit Die struck

Eran, located in the Sagar district of modern Madhya Pradesh, was among the earliest Indian cities to strike its own coinage, and these copper units belong to a period when punch-marked silver dominated long-distance trade while local civic authorities issued cast or die-struck base metal for smaller transactions. The precise civic authority behind Eran's issues remains debated — whether a merchant guild, a local chieftain, or a nascent municipal body — and no contemporary textual source names the issuing institution directly.