ORIENTAL NUMISMATIC SOCIETY
ORIENTAL NUMISMATIC SOCIETY
Secretary General Regional Secretaries Mr. - - Broome General Section: Mr. 0. P. Hennequin
Newsletter Editor Europe: Dr. H. J. van der Wiel Dr. M. B. Mitchiner UK. and Eire: Mr. K. W. Wiggins
Annual Subscription £5-00; 11.11. 25-00; FF. 65-00; 9-00 dollars North America: Dr. Craig Burns Newsletter number 87 December 1983 Members news
Our Treasurer, Mr. V. Brown, has copies of the ONS accounts for the year to April 1983. These are available
to any member on request (please send SAE or IR coupon).
‘East Asia Journal’ has recently been started by Bruce W. Smith (….). There are about 100 pages per
issue and subscription for the four annual issues costs 15 (USA), or 20 (elsewhere) dollars. The main
focus is on the numismatics of China and such adjacent regions as Tibet, Thailand, Vietnam (etc.). The
current issue (no. 6) includes a reprint of Edward Toda’s ‘Annam and its minor currency’ which was
originally published in the Journal of the North China branch of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1882. This
contains much information on Annamese cash that is not readily available elsewhere. The previous issue
(no. 5) included an article on the Early history of the Manchus and their coinage. For further details please contact Mr. Bruce Smith. ONS meetings
The next ONS meeting in London will commence at 2-30 pm on Saturday, غ315 March 1984 at the usual
venue, 28 Little Russell Street, London W 1. The Northeastern USA Chapter of the ONS is holding a meeting
in New York this month (cfr. N/L 85 - 86). The Numismatic Society of India is holding its 71st Annual
Conference at Madras University in late December. Index of items of interest from the ONS newsletters, 1976 - 1983 ABBASID-SASSANIAN coinage of Seistan ABHIRA & GUPTA lead coins ADIL SHAHI DYNASTY of Bijapur: a gold fanam ADIL SHAHI DYNASTY of Bijapur: an unusual copper coin AHMADABAD: pice of the East India Company ANCIENT NORTHERN INDIA: cast copper coinage ANCIENT NORTHERN INDIA: single punch marked coppers ANCIENT INDIA: solitary reverse symbols ARAB COINAGE: denominations on contemporary coins ARAKAN: two new types of rupee ARAKAN: ‘Lord of the White Elephant’ ARAKAN: four new coins of the Mrohaung dynasty ARAKAN: coins of the Mrohaung dynasty ARAKAN: coins of the Mrohaung dynasty - Chittagong ARAKAN: coins of the Mrohaung dynasty - trilingual ARCOT: nawabs of - mysterious mint: Muazimabad AURANGZEB: silver rupee of Sholapur
BAHMANID SULTANS: coin of Ismail Shah BENGAL: unusual tanka of Jalal-ud-din Fath Shah BENGAL SULTANS: fractional tankas BIJAPUR: gold fanam of the Adil Shahi dynasty BIJAPUR: unusual copper coin of Ibrahim II BORNEO: iron bullet money BORNEO: iron bullet money BORNEO: iron bullet money BORNEO: iron bullet money BURMA: early coinage and king Bodawpaya’s re-strikes BURMA: new Pyu coins and modern fabrications BURMA: lead coins of Pegu BUSHBY SAHIB: Rewah coins BUSHBY SAHIB: Rewah coins
CAFFA: (Crimea), Genoese coin issues CAST COPPER COINAGE: ancient Northern India CHAMBA: an 18th century coin CHINA: a note on the use of coinage in China in the 17th century CHINA: packsaddle sycee, c. 1913 - 1933 CHINA: 1933 Sun Yat-sen dollar variety CHINA: ‘seed’ cash CHINA: Mukden 20 and 10 cash coins of 1922 CHINA: engraved presentation pieces - 1853 - 1912 compiled by K. W. Wiggins N/L no. 50 Aug. Dec. Oct. Feb. Aug. Feb. Dec. Aug. Aug. Apr. Jun. Apr. Dec. Jun. Oct. Apr. Jun. Apr. Feb. Aug. Oct. Feb. Dec. Feb. Jun. Oct. Oct. Jun. Feb. Feb. Apr. Aug. Dec. Feb. Apr. Oct. Feb. Feb. Dec. Aug. CHINA: engraved presentation pieces - 1853 - 1912 CHINA: engraved presentation pieces - 19th - 20th centuries CHITTAGONG: coins of the Mrohaung dynasty of Arakan CIS-SUTLEJ STATES: two nazarana coins COCHIN: India COLLOQUIUM ON ISLAMIC NUMISMATICS: report DHAR STATE: early copper coins
EAST INDIA COMPANY: weights for the Farrukhabad rupee EAST INDIA COMPANY: Ahmadabad pice EGYPT: striking of large silver coins in the 18th century
FARRUKHABAD: rupee weight FORGERIES: Sikkim paisa FORGERIES: Sikkim, Tibet, Ancient India, Jaipur FORGERIES: Tibet, Tripura FORGERIES: Ceylon FORGERIES: Spanish Islamic coins FORGERIES: Chandra kings of Arakan FORGERIES: Rare early Islamic dinars FORGERIES: Islamic gold coins FORGERIES: Sino-Tibetan ‘Luluan’ rupee FORGERIES: Nejd countermark on Maria Theresia dollars FRENCH INDIA: double rupees of Pondicherry
GAKKAR TRIBE: copper coins GENOESE: coin issues at Caffa in the Crimea GUJERAT: silver tanka of Muzaffar Shah I GUJERAT: silver tanka of Muzaffar Shah I GUPTA & ABHIRA: lead coins GUPTA: gold staters HYDERABAD: date list of gold coins
INDONESIA: windmill coin INDONESIA: numismatic fantasies: iron bullet money INDONESIA: numismatic fantasies? INDONESIAN PLANTATION TOKENS IRANIAN NUMISMATICS: books published in Iran IRANIAN NUMISMATICS: books published in Iran IRANIAN NUMISMATICS: books published in Iran ISLAMABAD-MATHURA: coins struck at ISLAMIC SILVER COINS: with readjusted weights ISMAIL SHAH: Bahmanid billon coin
JAVA: Javanese coin JIND STATE: commemorative rupee
KASHMIR: Mughal coins of KATHMANDU: mint tokens KRISHNA RAJA WODEYAR of Mysore: 25 cash copper coin
LADAKH: copper coins of LADAKH: copper coins of LADAKH: copper coins of LARINS: hoard from the North Konkan LARINS: short note on Oct. 1982 Feb. 1983 Jun. 1983 Jun. 1978 Oct. 1976 Apr. 1976 Feb. 1983
| Apr. 1980 | Aug. 1981 | Feb. 1977 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apr. 1980 | Jun. 1977 | Aug. 1977 | |
| Oct. 1977 | Dec. 1977 | Dec. 1978 | Apr. 1980 Jun. 1977 Aug. 1977 Oct. 1977 Dec. 1977 Dec. 1978 |
Aug. 1979 Feb. 1980 Jun. 1981 Dec. 1981 Aug. 1982 Oct. 1981
Oct. 1982 Aug. 1977 Jun. 1977 Feb. 1979 Dec. 1978 Oct. 1983 Apr. 1977 Apr. 1979 Jun. 1981 Oct. 1981
Aug. 1979 Jun. 1976 Oct. 1976 Feb. 1977 Jun. 1977 Jun. 1979 Apr. 1981 Feb. 1978 Jun. 1977 Aug. 1980 Oct. 1979 Feb. 1982
Oct. 1978 Jun. 1979 Oct. 1979 Apr. 1978 Oct. 1978 (to be continued) Single Punch Marked Coppers of Ancient Northern India by Robert Tye
There exists among the mass of yet unattributed ancient Hindu coppers a group of uniface coins with a single large punchmark. These pieces have puzzled me for some time - why go to the trouble of producing a punch for impressing the coins, when a die would do just as well? If a coin is to be impressed several times, as with silver punch marked coins, then punches (ie. dies with the excess field removed) must be used to save each successive impression from obliterating the previous ones - but this is unecessary when only one impression is to be made.
I am publishing here four types of single punch marked coins, each coming from separate regions of North India, including coins which can be positively assigned to the ancient environs of Mathura, Ujjain and Kausambi. The issue of Mathura has been published in the past!, the other three types appear to be unpublished. This is rather surprising as the issues of Ujjain and Kausambi do not appear_to be particularly rare. I can only assume that other scholars have disregarded these crudely produced pieces” because the large variety of more attractive coppers to be found on these two sites have diverted that attention.
The coins I publish seem to form a coherent series, being more alike to one another than any of them are to other coins of their own particular area. I can think of only one explanation for these single-punch-mark coins which explains the use of a punch, rather than a complete die. The series must belong to the earliest period of copper coinage in India, sometime in the third century BC - before the Indo-Greeks brought the art of die striking into India, a period when punchmarking was the sole local method of coin production. Furthermore, the similarity of these coins produced by cities many hundreds of miles distant from one another suggests that the coins were requisitioned by a central authority - this also points to the third, or the early second century BC, as the date for the coins, since after that time northern India became divided among a host of petty kingdoms.
These deductions appear to have been confirmed by archaeological evidence. The Sonkh excavations? (near Mathura) produced examples of the Mathura single-punch-mark coins in level 34/33, a late Mauryan level. No copper coins were found in earlier levels, but the first cast copper coins” were found in the same strata. Prof. Hartel kindly informs me that no die struck coppers were discovered until the much later level 289.
Previous authors have considered the cast coins to be India’s first copper coinage. On the present evidence the single-punch-mark coins appear to have circulated at approximately the same date, and both
series appear to have been requisitioned by a central (Mauryan or Sunga) authority. To me it seems most likely that the crudely fabricated single-punch-mark coins were the first, abortive, experiment with a base metal coinage; the much more plentiful cast coppers replacing and superceeding them. It is not possible from the excavation data to confirm this opinion.
The copper coinage was probably introduced, as Dr. Mitchiner has suggested, to replace the tiny silver
one ratti coins. Perhaps future excavations might enable us to put a date on this change of metal for low denomination issues. My own observation of specimens suggests strongly that the silver one ratti coinage
became badly adulterated, with the result that the majority of surviving specimens appear to be contemporary plated forgeries. It would be satisfying to see the egalitarian hand of Ashoka as reforming the adulterated small
change of his empire and requisitioning first the single-punch-mark coppers, and later the cast coinage in copper - but I suppose foolhardy to advance such a hypothesis without the necessary evidence to support it.
Allan, BMC Ancient India, page 237 (Taxila?, nos. 7 - 11). Gupta, JNSI 1975, ‘Punchmarked coins from Sonkh’ page 8, type 9. Mitchiner, Ancient and Classical World, page 568 nos. 4482 - 4486. Some of these last coins were acquired by the late Dr. Vost while working at Mathura (communicated by Dr. Mitchiner). Gupta (ibid.), however, does note in listing the coins of Mathura ‘I remember having seen similar coins as finds from Kausambi’. Hartel, ‘German scholars in India’ vol. II, 1976, The excavations at Sonkh 1966 - 74 For details of these cast coppers see Tye, ONS newsletter no. 69 These appear to be stray coins from the Ujjain series. hw بي Mathura lion type:
Lion walking left with standard in front Rev. blank (5.3 gm) Ujjain and Kausambi elephant types:
Elephant standing left with tusks slightly raised Rev. blank (4.0 gm) Elephant standing left with tusks lowered Rev. blank (1.4 gm) Elephant walking left with tusks raised, taurine symbol in front Rev. blank (4.1 gm)
All photographs are enlarged twice (x2).