Basalt dumped along the coast in Arabia has been used as evidence for incense trade in antiquity because it was used as ballast, but they are found pretty much where they would have been offloaded in order to load the ships with trade goods. The coins in South India are found much further inland than sea-going ships probably went and in several places.
I think ballast is definitely a possibility, at least to explain how they got to South Asia in the first place. Then we may need another set of explanations for how they moved inland and up-river. It is why I love object biographies (even ones we can’t be sure of)!
My, those coins are a tantalizing mystery! My (completely uneducated and off-the-cuff) hypothesis is "ballast".
They are a wonderful mystery, aren’t they?
Basalt dumped along the coast in Arabia has been used as evidence for incense trade in antiquity because it was used as ballast, but they are found pretty much where they would have been offloaded in order to load the ships with trade goods. The coins in South India are found much further inland than sea-going ships probably went and in several places.
I think ballast is definitely a possibility, at least to explain how they got to South Asia in the first place. Then we may need another set of explanations for how they moved inland and up-river. It is why I love object biographies (even ones we can’t be sure of)!