Wadō Kaichin

In the first year of Wadō, natural copper needing no smelting was presented from Chichibu district in Musashi province, and on that same day the era name was changed to Wadō. Silver coin in the fifth month, copper coin in the eighth. It is a round, square-holed coin of 2.5 cm modelled on the Tang Kaiyuan Tongbao, and the leading view is that it went to pay the labour on the building of Heijō-kyō. This photograph is of a piece found at the site of Sūfuku-ji.