Featured Coins of the Maurya Empire

Am not looking forward to your worst one

It is 426. Issued al marco to a c. 3.43g standard. But to judge from the heavy wear, this specimen probably circulated for a century or more after the collapse of the Mauryan empire

I would welcome a second opinion here. The engraving of the symbols is poor, which indicates it is a very late issue – just as the Empire collapsed. It looks like the very common type 575, but if so, there should be a pair of taurines under the ‘flag’, and I see no trace of them. Maybe it is so badly engraved the guy just missed them off? But it is odd that Terry H did not make this a sub-variety if so. Have I missed something?

However - given the points I make elsewhere - my efforts here seem rather like fiddling while Rome burns.

Rob T

 

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Thanks for this Rob! I'll probably wait for better photos to post the other two if I ever get around to it but they're pretty crude with only a few stamps each on half karshapana flans. Is there much context or information given by GH about 426 or the pieces around it? I tried to look on Zeno for more examples here but it looks like they start the GH numbers at 477-596.

Here is one of my fun copper pieces from Ujjain.

Ujjain Region of India
Post-Mauryan Period
Circa 184-150 BCE
AE Rectangle; 0.98g 9x10mm
Ref: See Z# 228890​

 

Nice coins @SeptimusT - and thanks to all for sharing some interesting examples.

 

@Orange Julius' coin is tough, and 575 is plausible. I can't really make heads or tails of the upper left punch, but it looks like the 'flag' symbol doesn't always have the taurines, or they're not always clear. One of the examples in the book (page 235) looks very much like the depiction on this coin (compare the bottom left symbol). In fact, it almost looks to me like the entire symbol is enclosed within a partial 'bubble,' not just the upper portion. EDIT: Ditto on this example from VCoins, look at the upper right symbol.



To @TuckHard, 426 et al. are part of series IVd, which GH attributes to the pre-Maurya Nanda dynasty of Magadha. That's circa 370 - 321 BC according to the most accepted chronology.

 

This is amazing! I had no idea it was pre-Mauryan. That's amazing to me, it's definitely my second oldest coin in that case. Thanks for the help with it. I found the Zeno category for that here. I was curious if you or any other members knew where the images for the various punchmarked symbols people use are found? I see it in the VCoins link above and throughout the Zeno examples. It's be nice to have to attribute mine in my records.[/user]

 

The pictures are from GH, although some of them are also posted online. The book includes plates of each symbol, a catalogue and description of each one, in addition to listing the symbols present on each coin type.

 

Yes - there is a tradition that after the collapse of Empire a remnant of the Mauryan line set up at Vidisha, just up the road from Ujjain. Perhaps that is why these tiny remnant pmc coppers carried on there for a while?

The fact that the Mauryan silver pmc’s weigh almost the same as Roman imperial denarii at c 3.4g seems to be just a coincidence. However, the preference for an economy driven by a small silver units is surely a somewhat comparable state of affairs. So its interesting to note that the Romans kept that show on the road till the 3rd century AD, while India was producing a miserable copper remnant already in the 2nd century BC. More than that, the switch to an Indian (Kushan) gold/copper system in the late first century AD ran a couple of century ahead of such developments under Constantine in the Roman West.

It is as if the Indian economy 'ran hot' somehow. I long wondered why that was, and suspect it is to do with an especially independent mindedness in Hindu merchants. Your silver piece is one from a huge stock of old silver pmc’s (‘purana’) that went on circulating for centuries after the Mauryans were long gone. (Tons of them are completely worn out and have gone to the melting pot, even in recent times). So even residual Post-Mauryan regional governments were no longer getting their hands on them in most places, to re-strike the silver. They were reduced to issuing coppers. Tax payers had gone on strike, for centuries.

Despite my earlier joke, I think there is often a lot more to be learned from worn out silvers and miserable coppers than more prestigious pieces.

Rob T

 

Two questions:
1. Of all the punchmarked coins that have been found, what percentage are identifiable to GH number by someone familiar with the series (not necessarily at a scholar level but such that most knowledgeable people would agree with the ID)? The overlaps and edge strikes I have seen in groups at shows suggests this number might be low but I am most certainly not familiar with the series. The number of overstrikes and coins with banker's marks does not help but even the ordinary ones seem a problem.

2. On the coins GH lists with five obverse punches numbered 1 through 5, were the punches applied in a consistent order?

 

Hello Doug

DS > Of all the punchmarked coins that have been found, what percentage are identifiable to GH number by someone familiar with the series

The majority. Let me explain. About 20 years ago I chanced upon an Afghan refugee who has a sack of encrusted and corroded pmcs. Maybe 10 KG? He said they were from the MZ II hoard. Given the dreadful situation that now exist I must stress at this point that I never owned any of these coins, but I did agree to borrow 1,000 from him, in exchange for cleaning and attributing them. I cleaned them and loaned them onwards to the BM for study, were Joe Cribb arranged for Elizabeth Errington to study them. She attributed 837 of them, despite the fact that due to extensive corrosion they were low about 10% of their weight. She also studied a different group of 854 coins which were only a little corroded. In that case she got slightly ambiguous results for 39 coins, but a total failure for only 3. So a failure like you own coin is actually rather unusual.

DS > On the coins GH lists with five obverse punches numbered 1 through 5, were the punches applied in a consistent order?

An interesting question and the answer seems to be no. There were five obverse punches applied, but Terry told me they they were picked up and then discarded for each coin in random order

Rob T

 

Let me add to my last my own understanding of the study of the gigantic MZ II hoard as a whole. I have been told that a private donor made the funds available to Oxford University to buy the great majority of it, so as to subject it to proper study. But that would have broken UNESCO rules, (even though at the time there was no Afghanistan government that could even defend its orphanages, let alone its museums). I seem to recall a senior UNESCO official himself urged Oxford to ignore UNESCO rules and buy them!!! But, perhaps given, I judge, the stance of oh-so-clever right-on archeologists, nothing was ever done. So no full study will ever be carried out.

Rob T

 

Very nice coins, all!

I've dabbled a bit in almost every corner of India from 600 BC to the 21st century, but PMC isn't an area I have collected seriously - mainly just looking for a good deal where I can find one.

Like Doug, I collect Maurya AR mainly by shape

Square:


Round


This is one of the two famous "three figures" type with three separate punches


A post-Maurya (Sunga?) dreadful billon


A tiny Ujjain copper PMC


And while I do not actively seek them out, I was able to nab two large-module Magadha karshapana that were mis-attributed as Maurya (and sold at Maurya prices!)

This was kindly identified a couple years ago by @EWC3 as GH305 (series III) struck on GH283

This one i picked up a few weeks ago and don't have an ID for


And just for fun, some other pre-Maurya PMC

Gandhara AR Shatamana - currently on my desk because it won't fit in a 2x2!


Kuru 1/2 karshapana (triskeles) with six-arm counterstamp on reverse

 

I bought this back in 2004 for very little money. The seller identified it as Karshapanc, about 300 BC. With such simple and irregular little pieces of silver, how can I know if it is genuine or just something made by a modern Indian silversmith? Can it be identified more precisely, or is there too little detail on it to do that?

 

Am not surprised. The 'overtype' is easy enough - a nice 307 from Period III

But the reverse 'undertype' seems to me to be unpublished(?) The eight spoke wheel is not by the same hand as other known versions of the symbol, all of them anyhow seem to be on Period I's. And the other big symbol (is it some sort of srivatsa in a box?) seems to be new (?). Such reverse 'undertypes' ought to be period II. I notice Terry added five new period II's since he first numbered - (plus 8 additional "transitional" I/II's). So maybe another completely new type?

Again I seek a second opinion. But who from? Terry died last year, and the BM is probably not allowed to comment on it.

Rob T

 

@Neal, I can only make out one symbol on your coin, but it narrows it down to three types, all Series VIb. This dates to the time of Ashoka and his successors, circa 272-232 BC. Specifically, your coin is 571 - 572a, depending on what the fifth mark is; I think it's probably 571, but I can't see well enough to say for sure. Here are the marks for the individual types, you'll recognize the fourth mark at the bottom of your coin as it is oriented in the photo.



@EWC3 is right that Finn's coin seems to have two symbols that don't match those in the book. The six-armed symbol shows up on Series I and II.

 

Ive probably posted these elsewhere even but heres for continuing the conversation.

Heres my box with Ashoka the great by weytze keuning, a lovely historical fiction on ashoka. Started this a while ago and loving it so far, its a must read.

Ive got one copper peice in this lot. alojg with a few of the earlier single 6petal mark variety which has this kind of concave shape to it.

And heres the one which is kind of a bent bar. its in the 3rd collumn, 4th coin. Has a 6petal punch going on with it.