Nice little chunk of gold! A rare moment where I have something to contribute to a thread from @panzerman Here's my 1 Massa coin 'Piloncito' from the Sailendra/Sri Vijayan kingdoms. 2.44g Incused Lingam with Nagari legend 'Tha' on the reverse. Circa late 8th century From Mataram/Medang Kingdom of central Java ruled by the Sailendra dynasty, they develpoed the Hindu/Buddhist culture in the Southeast Asia, they also intermarried with the Sri Vijayans of Sumatra (whom would be later invaded by the Cholas in the 11th century).
Cool Coin John! The obv is very interesting. Yes, it i actually memorial to “A Hot Mess”. Mystery solved.
Super cool panzerman, congrats on the buy! Your piece is quite overweight too, the two denominations it sits between is the AV Massa at 2.4g and the AV Atak at 1.2g. The obverse of this type (and most surviving Javanese gold piloncito coins) bears a corrupted image which has been abstracted from a purnakalasha (vase of plenty) which is a holy image in Buddhism. The connection of the unclear/damaged face of these coins with the purnakalasha is currently unpublished but I have ran across a handful of examples which depict the evolution. It's pretty odd that the religious image was so quickly degraded into meaningless lines and gashes on nearly all examples (95%+) and continued to be minted for centuries without the purnakalasha making a reappearance in good image.
Yep exactly! The purnakalasha pot is actually a pretty common motif on the Buddhist/Hindu coins of SE Asia and they appear on coins from present-day Bangladesh, Thailand, and Indonesia. I'll include some pictures below from my WIP website which show some of the early coins of Southeast Asia which bear the purnakalasha. Please note that some details are incomplete or possibly incorrect.