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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;TuckHard, post: 4971764, member: 102653&quot;]This isn&#039;t mine, but it is hosted in the National Museum of Indonesia in Jakarta so I figure I can post it. See it online <a href="http://masterpieces.asemus.museum/masterpiece/detail.nhn?objectId=11907" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://masterpieces.asemus.museum/masterpiece/detail.nhn?objectId=11907" rel="nofollow">here</a>. This is a stamped silver ingot from Central Java that was likely the earliest form of metallic currency in the region. It&#039;s interesting that it took so long for ingots/coinage to become accepted in Indonesia (around 780 CE) given the long history of trade between India and China, both which adopted metallic currencies around a millennium earlier. Mitchiner writes of these ingots as precursors to the adoption of standardized coinage by 780 CE, but there is no evidence of the ingots existing before the standardized silver coins. It seems likely that they circulated side-by-side by the end of the eighth century.</p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t think this example has been well documented or written about in numismatic materials, but it is likely the longest provenance-dated specimen of these early ingots. This piece was donated to the National Museum of Indonesia around 1778 CE by Jacob Cornelis Matthieu Radermacher, a Dutch scientist most known for his botany work. The only side shown displays a purnakalasha vase, a revered symbol in Buddhism/Hinduism.</p><p style="text-align: center"><br /></p> <p style="text-align: center">[ATTACH=full]1194895[/ATTACH] </p> <p style="text-align: center"><br /></p> <p style="text-align: center">[ATTACH=full]1194896[/ATTACH] </p><p>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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