Coins and Tokens from Ancient Ceylon

Coins are our principal source to elucidate both the pattern of trade between Sri Lanka and the western world in late antiquity and the island’s monetary and economic history of this period. Of the specimens discovered in Sri Lankan soil only two sorts were of significance: Indian silver punch-marked coins and their imitations were used as an all purpose money or general currency, whereas Late Roman “chicken feed copper” coins and their imitations functioned as special purpose money for essentially monastic purposes.The study first and foremost critically compiles, annotates and publishes – partly for the first time – the finds of Late Roman coins, ancient Indian and local coins and coin-like objects discovered in Sri Lanka from 1584 to 2005. This compilation is supplemented by a list of hoards of mediaeval Sinhalese and Chinese hoards and rounded off by a digest of findings of Late Roman coins in India.

• By (author) Reinhold Walburg

"Review - German ""We may con gratulate the author for his decision to inlcude all Western coins instead of restricting his presentation to the Roman issues as was done by most of his predecessors. [...] An important part of the work is the detailed, annotated catalogue, including Roman and Indian punch-marked coins and the Naimana imitations with a full account of the finding circumstances (if known) and publishing details. [...] The detailed analysis of the historical implications of the material presented takes more than 50 pages and offers a full reconstruction of the eastern trade in Late Antiquity, including an impressive quantity of textual evidence from the 4th to the 7th centuries.""Von: Klaus KarttunenIn: Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 2017; 122(2): 177-183.------------------------""Die Arbeit W.[alburg]s, die nunmehr als Ausgangspunkt fur die Betrachtung des Handels zwischen der mediterranen Welt und Indien in der Spatantike zu gelten hat, besticht nicht nur durch die eindringliche Analyse des numismatischen Befunds in seiner Aussagekraft fur die Wirtschaftsgeschichte. W. bezieht in seine Diskussionen stets alle Uberlieferungszweige mit ein und beschrankt seinen Blick nicht auf Sri Lanka, sondern betrachtet den dortigen Munzbefund im Zusammenhang mit demjenigen Sudindiens. Dies hat in der numismatischen Forschung zu dem Raum keineswegs als Selbstverstandlichkeit zu gelten (...). Besonderes Interesse verdienen W.s Beobachtungen in bezug auf die Strukturen des Handels, die direkte Kontakte zwischen Sri Lanka und der mediterranen Welt ausschliessen, wie auch seine Beobachtungen zur Geldgeschichte in Sri Lanka selbst. W. hat das sich selbst gesteckte Ziel, eine Basis fur eine Betrachtung der Geldgeschichte der Insel zu legen, mehr als erfullt. Seine Arbeit stellt nicht nur einen Referenzpunkt zukunftiger Forschungen dar, sondern liefert einen grundlegenden Beitrag fur das Gesamtbild der faszinierenden Welt der Wirtschafts- und Kulturkontakte zwischen der mediterranen Welt und Indien.""Kai RuffingIn: Klio. 92 (2010) 2. S. 555-556.-------------------------""Insgesamt hat Walburg mit der vorliegenden Monographie eine umfassende und vor allem kritische Materialvorlage der antiken Fundmunzen auf Sri Lanka publiziert, die im analytischen Teil durch anregende geld- und wirtschaftsgeschichtliche Uberlegungen erganzt wird. Es ist zu erwarten, dass ""Coins and Tokens from Ancient Ceylon"" zum Standardwerk wird, auf dessen solider Basis weitere Fundberichte und wirtschaftshistorische Studien aufbauen konnen.""Hermann NiedermayrIn: Marburger Beitrage zur antiken Handels-, Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte. 27 (2009). S. 200-206.-------------------------""For more than a decade now, the German Commission for the Archaeology of Non-European Cultures (formerly the Commission for General and Comparative Archaeology) of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) has been exploring sites in the south of Sri Lanka, mainly in the areas around Mahagama and Godavaya. [1] In order to contextualize their work,they have cooperated with a wide range of scholars who took up the task of identifying and interpreting the various findings, explain their significance and assess their historical value. Reinhold Walburg, an acknowledged expert of Roman coinage [2], has been put in charge of the coins that have come to light in recent years. Drawing on his own substantial researches in this field, Walburg has compared the recent findings from the South of the island with those found in the rest of the island, and thus combined the cataloguing of the ancient coins with an analysis of their wider implications. The volume is divided in three major parts. The first part (chapters 1-3, pp. 1-112) presents a history of Lankan numismatic research, together with an overview of the coin types known from ancient Lanka. The second part, which is the biggest of the whole volume, contains a fully illustrated and annotated catalogue of coins and tokens (that means printed and cast metal plaques), together with a few Chinese and late medieval coins. In the third part, Walburg then analyses the material he has presented on the previous pages. In effect, what is presented in these three chapters comes to a political and economic history of the ancient world from eastern rim of the Roman Empire on the Red Sea coast to Persia, India, Lanka and even China, whose coins were also found on the island. (...)The importance of Walburg's work can hardly be underestimated. His catalogue of coins will be a first-hand reference catalogue for the Roman coinage of South India and Sri Lanka, serving scholars and collectors alike. His findings contribute much to our understanding of the history of trade and transaction across the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal, and his suggestions contain crucial questions regarding the political, economic and religious history of early Sri Lanka. Last not least Walburg outlines an agenda for future research, pointing for instance to the gap between the circulation of Roman coins in the 6-7th centuries and the beginning of indigenous Lankan coinage (the kahapanas) in the 10th century. That said, it is clear that ""Coins and Tokens from Ancient Ceylon"" is a substantial and indispensible contribution to Sri Lankan history and to the study of the global dimension of late antiquity and the early middle ages.""Notes:[1] See Hans-Joachim Weisshaar et al. (eds.), Ancient Ruhuna. Sri Lanka-German Archaeological Project in the Southern Province, vol. 1, Mainz 2001.[2] Reinhold Walburg, Antike Munzen aus Ceylon. Die Bedeutung romischer Munzen und ihrer Nachahmungen fur den Geldumlauf auf Ceylon, in: Studien zu Fundmunzen der Antike, 3 (1985), pp. 27-260.By Tilman Frasch, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityIn: http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/2010-1-042
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