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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Finn235, post: 4168765, member: 98035&quot;]I am the definition of &quot;spread too thin&quot; - this has been the most busy two months for Indo Sassanian coins in over a year, and my wallet has been feeling the hurt!</p><p><br /></p><p>Over the course of the past couple of months, I have been buying up coins from a small hoard of rare and poorly studied coins, previously known from fewer than 10 examples.</p><p><br /></p><p>Some background:</p><p><br /></p><p>My track 2 encompasses a relatively narrow band of coins in the &quot;Sri Ha&quot; family, tentatively attributed to the Pratihara empire, perhaps in the 600-900 AD timeframe. The unifying feature of this track is the replacement of the portrait&#039;s korymbos (hair bun wrapped in cloth, or &quot;orb&quot; or &quot;globus&quot;) with the Brahmi letter Sa, as well as the introduction of a (generally) two word phrase Sri + (Ha, Va, Pa, Sha, Bho, Na, Ra, Te). The meaning of this is unknown, but it is assumed that this represents a shorthand for the king&#039;s name. Stylistically, the attendants are schematized so that they represent rows of beads. Metrologically, the series seldom exceeds 4g, and silver content quickly plummets from about 80% at the start to 20% for the bulk of Sri Ha, to negligible for the late types.</p><p><br /></p><p>An illustration of the overall development of this track, for context:</p><p><br /></p><p>Earliest Peroz imitation</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1074044[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Silver content drops, portrait and reverse become more stylized</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1074041[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Legends added, reverse is more stylized (Sri Ha)</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1074045[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Sri Ha type emerges (there are many styles, collectively these are about 90% of all individual coins from Track 2, and up to ~30% of all Indo-Sassanian coins)</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1074043[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Concurrently, the other series continues to stylize as a distinct series</p><p>(Sri Va, small portrait)</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1074046[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>(Sri Va, large portrait- notice the Sa is still present)</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1074047[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>(Sri Ra - notice that there are two large and stylized moons above the fire altar)</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1074042[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Now enter this little curiosity - the only type in the entire track with a three letter legend in front of the portrait - Sri Da Ma</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1074051[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>How exactly these fit into the larger picture I am not yet entirely sure - the reverse certainly pins them to this family of coins, although the distinctive portrait indicates that these were created as a separate imitation event, further reinforced by the lack of any intermediate series. </p><p><br /></p><p>Another important feature of these is the fire altar ‐ arguably these are more closely related to the Sri Ha in terms of the shape of the altar and the attendants, although while Sri Ha displays the bowl of the altar as five pellets and a thick bar, topped by a 1-2-3 equilateral triangle of flame pellets, Sri DaMa has only two pellets and a bar for the bowl, and only three flame pellets.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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