Featured Discovery of a new ancient Javanese gold massa coinage series c. 800-1000 CE

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Hello everyone! For several months I've been studying and creating a research piece that covers the numismatic history of the ancient maritime kingdoms of Southeast Asia that covers the pre-Islamic coin series from ancient Sumatra, Java, and the Philippines. The main polities covered are the Srivijaya of Sumatra, the Shailendra of Java, the Majapahit of Java, and the Ma-yi of the Philippines. There's a lot to it and it's been very interesting; I plan to share the majority of my findings here in time.

I wanted to introduce a new discovery that has never been documented anywhere else to the best of my knowledge. The discovery is a previously-unknown reverse design on a rare denomination of gold. Some context should be known about the coinage series first.

The island kingdoms of Southeast Asia are generally held to have been not very important in numismatic history. There was little everyday usage of coins until around 1300 CE when the great Majapahit of Java began to import mass quantities of Chinese copper cash coins and the markets began to shift towards currency-usage. Despite this, there are perhaps a dozen different regional coinage series that saw limited usage, mostly in barter/weight usage.

The earliest of these local coinages is the Javanese irregular ingots from Central Java, thought to have been issued under the Shailendra Dynasty. They probably weren't traded as coinage but rather a store of weight in metal. There are gold, silver, and copper examples known. One author suggests they started as a religious token or offering before spreading. Below is an example.

Javanese irregular ingot
Before 800 CE
Obv: Upright flowering vase
Rev: Sandalwood flower
Ex. Millies (pl. 1, 10)​

The next two series to evolve out of these ingot coins were the silver sandalwood massa coins and the gold ta piloncito massa coins, both attributed to the Shailendra Dynasty of Central Java, c. 775-950 CE. Both became very widespread and were even imitated around the region, such as the Srivijaya copying the Javanese and issuing their own silver sandalwood massa coins. Below is one of the gold Javanese massa coins that will be the focus of this post.

Javanese gold piloncito massa
Circa 775-1000 CE
Obv: Devanagari character 'Ta'
Rev: Two incused rectangles split by the lingam
1 Massa - 2.4 grams
Ex. CNG E-Auction 361, Lot 443
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The gold coins of Java were rounded like beads rather than flat and are commonly, along with similar Filipino coins, called piloncitos. Like the silver coins issued during the time, the gold coins were struck to a weight standard of 2.4 grams, or the massa. The gold Javanese coins were known to have been issued in 1 massa and 1/2 massa weights according to Mitchiner, but this is actually inaccurate. In addition to those, there is also 1/4 massa, 1/8 massa, and a very rare, huge 4 massa coins that weigh in at 9.6 grams. All of the various denominations borrowed from the lingam reverse but features mostly corrupt or illegible reverses. Below are two examples of the 4 massa pieces.

Javanese gold piloncito 4 massa
Circa 775-950 CE
Obv: Two incused rectangles split by the lingam
Rev: Corrupted
4 Massa - 9.6 grams
Ex. Koin Kuno Antik, Patina Antik

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Although hard to read, there is a distinctive and purposeful reverse. I struggled to find an answer to the mystery of the reverse until I stumbled upon this vague listing in the online catalog for the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City. Without an obverse or other details, this Met Museum example seemed to be a rare unique piece, until I began to look at the other four massa pieces and rotated it. There was a match! Below are five examples of the rare four massa that exhibit the flowering vase design from the earliest coins of Java, the irregular ingot coinage!

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This discovery is especially interesting for a couple reasons. First, it is a new design series that has previously gone unnoticed by any research or books. Second, it directly ties the Javanese gold piloncitos to the earlier mixed Javanaese irregular ingot coinage. Lastly, it shows that both sides of the Javanese irregular ingots were carried over to later coinages. The flowering vase obverse was later copied on the gold four massa while the sandalwood flower reverse was copied by the much more common silver sandalwood massa of Java, which were then themselves later imitated on Sumatra and Thailand. The reach and influence of the ingot coinage must have been larger than previously thought.

If anyone else has noticed this, or seen any references that discuss this, I'd love to hear about it. I've read nearly everything I can on the series and have never found this discussed or these four massa pieces illustrated.

I'd also love to see any other ancient Indonesian of Filipino coinage, I'll be posting some of my personal pieces later!

 

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These are so interesting.

 

I like to think so, too. There's not much information on these coins outside of a couple niche books but even those don't reflect all of the new discoveries in the region in recent years. It's nothing new or ground-breaking, but here is my Javanese silver sandalwood massa. Notice that the sandalwood flower design is borrowed from the early Javanese irregular ingots that the gold four massa also borrowed from.

 

Cool thread. Thanks for sharing. Way outside of my collecting area but very interesting.

 

I have one....

 

I've actually ran across this example in auction results! Here it is from the auction house.

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These small coins have only been discovered in the port city of Palembang in Sumatra, indicating that they were a local circulation type. They are almost always struck to the quarter massa (called kupang) weight of ~0.6 grams but range from about 0.7-0.5 grams in actuality. Below is a listing by Java Auction that discusses it a bit and after that are some other examples I've ran into online. They're pretty rare and very interesting.

1 Kupang (1/4 massa)
Ex. Koin Kuno Antik



1 Kupang (1/4 massa)
Ex. Koin Kuno Antik​

1 Kupang (1/4 massa)
0.70 grams
Ex. eBay (tamz_tamz)​

I've also ran across one single "double-unit" weight example, instead of the quarter massa standard of these cross coins, this one is one half massa. The reverse side also appears to show a bit more detail than the smaller kupang coins, but it's a poor photo. Still very notable though.

1 Atak (1/2 massa)
1.30 grams | 7mm
Ex. eBay (WorthPoint archive)​

 

Thanks for info/ now I finally got this coin identified.
John

 

Glad to have helped! One thing I'd like to mention is that I find the Java Auctions date of 6-7th century as probably inaccurate. The first coinage didn't occure until the late 700s on Java and this gold Sumatran coin was based on the Javanese weight system. Most authors place the Sumatran coins at the start of the 11th century but that may be later than what it actually was. I'd place it at 800 CE at the earliest but that's just my personal theory.

 

Have you ever placed bids on the Java Auctions? I was always wondering whether to bid on some of their coins.

 

No I never have, I just watch their listings sometimes because they're a great source for these ancient maritime kingdom coinages.

 

Outside of my area, but great work finding this, and thanks for the interesting writeup.

 

Wow. This is the sort of thing that belongs in the Journal of the American Numismatic Society! Fantastic research.

 

Thank you! I'll look into some journals, I also think the Oriental Numismatic Society would be a great fit. I don't know much about formal publishing, though.

 

ons would probably be better as they often publish new discoveries. you could ask for their author guidelines

 

I'll reach out to them. Thanks for the advice in this!


I also wanted to share this photo that one of my Indonesian contacts pointed out to me; it's a stone relief found on the great Borobudur Buddhist temple located in Central Java. It was constructed by the Shailendra Dynasty that issued the gold coins mentioned in the main post. There are dozens of these flowering vase designs everywhere amongst the monument which indicates that they held significant religious meaning to the ancient Javanese Buddhists.

 

Hello @TuckHard

By coincidence I recently saw a weight with such a vase (Purna-Kumbha) on it – surely for checking exactly this ‘4 massa’ standard (it is 9.88g). Write me off group if interested in more details

What is your opinion of the weight system in use for these coins?

Personally, it looks to me like the “4-Massa” coin is really near enough the same as 4 Indo-Greek drachms, thus close to the same Ratti standard used by the Indo-Greeks through Kushans.

That is to say – at the time of issue, the “4-Masa” coins would be Tolas of 96 rattis, and thus your “massa” would really be 3 ancient Indian mashas each of 8 rattis…….

I note Album took a different view to me on this example:

https://www.biddr.ch/auctions/stevealbum/browse?a=424&l=414224

Its a complicated issue, and I think we need to tread carefully

Rob T

PS Note - I still have not resolved my differences with SA over even Abd al-Malik’s standard!!!

 

The weight system and where it comes from is probably the hardest part of the research for me. As far as I can muster from the sources I've read, it appears that the majority of scholars believe that the massa weight system was an indigenous system that was developed in Java around the 8th century and it was not tied to foreign weight systems despite using several loanwords from Sanskrit. To me, the prospect of the Indonesian weight system being tied, or at least reflecting upon, to Indian weights would be quite possible given the huge amount of other cultural and religious concepts that were used by the Javanese royal elite that first appeared in India.

With the ratti weight, I really need to look into it more but I haven't came across any published works that adopt it to the Indonesian massa coins. There are plenty of online auction listings (like the Stephen Album you linked) that list the weight in rattis as well but it doesn't appear that there were any inscriptions from the time or anything else that would indicate that they practiced this when the coins were in circulation. With that, I have noticed that nearly every auction that does list the weight in rattis claims it to be '2.4 grams = 1 massa = 20 rattis'.

Hope this helps some and I apologize for any errors or misunderstandings, I'm still studying the weight systems used.

 

Rob, thanks for showing me this thread, and TuckHard, you have made a real step forward here in identifying the design on that 4 Massa. Most I've seen for sale have been blurred reverse.

These are the gold-rush days for pre-Colonial Malaysian and Indonesian coins, with the river dredging turning up types never seen before. The best finds are the tin coins which have been nicely preserved in the fresh waters, while those above ground have rotted away or been melted to the point where mid-19thC authors like Millies, and Netscher & Van Der Chijs knew of only a handfull of types. The breadth of coinage from Sultanates like Jambi, Siak and Palembang is now somewhat organized and published at the zeno.ru site. The Bangka jokoh series has proven to be huge, with hundreds of types now published, while a few years ago you would be lucky to find two examples auctioned in a year.

A worthwhile book is The Evolution of Thai Money by Ronachai Krisadaolarn (Ron Crystal) which is crammed with gorgeous photos of early Thai as well as Maritime coinages (and an extra CD with hundreds more). The gold cross coins which Panzerman introduces to the thread are published here in three denominations (though 4 exist), as well as the gold denominations of sandalwood flower, which were unknown until a few years ago. You can find this book online at a ridiculous cheap price, so no excuse for not getting it even if Thai is not your focus. The book unfortunately contains some fake, fantasy and what I would call doubtful items, also featuring this punaghata / phra tao (vase & flowers) motif, such as cut coppers with the vase on the convex side, and irregular flat squares which appear to be gold, derived from the extremely rare sycee piece well-known from Millies.

Recently I was offered some gold-plated novelties mixed in with cut gold and broken coins as camouflage. These "vertical 4 Massa" use the unclear, devolved reverse of the usual type discussed here. Let's hope the manufacturer will read this thread and improve the quality of his product .

The temple frieze posted by TuckHard takes me back to the theme of wonderful new tin things being discovered. Here are two examples of the design (and a bulk lot) from a series of hundreds of (usually) tiny rounded (or conelike) objects. None of them are published anywhere that I know of, yet they turn up on ebay at under $10 and may follow a rough denominational sequence of .30, .60, .90, 1.20gm. Themes include Buddhist symbolism, Sanskrit letters, animals (usually maritime), and geometrical designs. Gambling pieces? Devotional/charm? Coins? We live in exciting times.

 

Perfectly said, I think the field is blowing up with new varieties and discoveries being made all the time. I'm working on a research piece that tries to include them, specifically the tiny tin coins that have been discovered primarily in Palembang. Some have been discovered in Java, however. Really interesting how many types of coins had been overlooked in earlier studies.