This volume, the seventeenth in the series, contains several papers on different aspects of South Indian Numismatics. Apart from papers on seals of Tamil Nadu and a seal from Sri Lanka in Matura Museum, there are papers on coins of pre-medieval period, such as the Andhra Janapada coins from Singavaram; Satavahana coins with interchanged symbols and symbols on an early Chera coin. Careful analysis of the contents of the hoards is always useful for numismatists. There are three papers dealing with coins from the hoards–Satavahana coins from Phanigiri excavations, Roman Aurei from a hoard in Pudukkottai area and the analytical study of the Amaravathi hoard of Imperial Punch Marked coins by statistical method. Some of the unknown coins or types included in this volume belong to Satavahana, Nolamba, Hoysala, Venad, Vijayanagar, Wodeyar and Mughal rulers. The importance of mints, coin dies and minting techniques for numismatic studies is well known. The papers belonging to this category are : the reverse die of Rupee coin of Asaf Jahi Ruler Mir Mahbub Ali Khan, notes on the hand minting of coins in India and the one on the term Kampattam which is said to denote a mint. There is also a paper on coin terms occurring in Telugu Pallava inscriptions. The papers assignable to chemical and analytical study of known coins included in this issue are: paramagnetic elements in some Satavahana coins; analytical study of the ores and objects found during the excavations at Adichchanallur; the results of the trace multi-element analysis of some ancient copper and lead coins by ICP – MS Method and scientific study of Chola Rajadiraja's coin with low gold content. Readers are bound to benefit from the author index and subject index for Vols. I to XVII and the index to the title of papers for the Vols. XIV to XVII. Besides these, reviews of two recent books are included. This volume with illustrations, tables, and diagrams is likely to be useful to the archaeologists, numismatists, epigraphists and coin collectors and could help historians to understand the political and economic history of South India.
There are no reviews yet.