India developed some of the world's earliest coins circa 600BC. The coins were made by taking a flat, though often irregularly shaped, piece of silver, cutting it to the proper weight, then applying a series of punches to the front of it, indicating where it was made, when it was made and who made it. The punches covered a wide variety of symbols. As the coin circulated, additional punches were sometimes punched on the back, verifying the weight and fineness of the coin. The coin, known as the Punchmarked Karshapana, continued to be issued until about the second century BC. Today the coin represents one of the earliest approaches to the development of coinage. Here's an article from the British Museum press: Silver karshapana of the Mauryan Empire "Mauryan Empire, 3rd century BC Northern India The first coinages of India used the same technology as the bent bars of the north-west regions, that is, pieces of silver, of any shape but of a specific weight, were struck with punches on one side. The earliest coins show great regional variation in design and in the number of punches used, but under the Mauryans smaller round or square coins with five random punch marks became standard. These coins circulated well beyond Mauryan borders; they have been excavated at sites from northern Afghanistan to Sri Lanka. In Indian texts they are called karshapana. Two of the punches are always a Sun and a Six-armed symbol. The other three may include representations of plants, animals, auspicious or religious symbols and everyday objects." When you eventually look at the photo notice the Sun (circle w/glory) and the Six-armed symbol on every coin. According to the Indian text Visuddhimagga, all these marks enabled a money changer to know who issued each coin and where it was struck. Any punch mark on the reverse of Karshapana coins is another person's mark verifying silver content and weight (similar to Chinese chopmarks). Here's a photo courtesy of Joels Coin (www.joelscoins.com): http://www.joelscoins.com/images/indiakarshap2r.jpg These silver Karshapana coins are very small weighing only 3.3 grams but, some boasting weights from 3.11 to 3.29 grams (not as small as Indian gold fanams) have been found however, research will inform you that 1/8, 1/4 and 1/2 Karshapanas exist. Mind you, some of India's regions or large cities issued their own fractional Karshapanas in brass and bronze, thus their fractionals were as large or larger than their silver Karsharpana coins. Vcoins has a webpage with photos of a few different Indian silver Sharpanas and gold Fanams. Take a World Wide Web look-see: http://www.vcoins.com/ancient/nemesis/store/listCategoriesAndProducts.asp?idcategory=178&curPage=3 Thought you might like to know... Clinker
I never knew about these. I knew about the electrum trite from Lydia and cash from China, but I thought they were both years ahead of anyone else. Thank you for a very informative post.
To TheBigH What I think is remarkable about the revelation of the Lydian, Chinese and Indian developement of the world's first coinage about the same century, is "They all did it independently of each other." Neither country knew of the others' entrance into the necessity of producing a standard weight and measure of exchange. Some historians believe Greece's coinage came about independently too. Clinker
Those were my thoughts exactly. It seems like two cultures will figure many things out at exactly the same time, even when they don't have contact. Chinese, Indian and Lydian coins are all so remarkably different as well.
