2016-03-28 Mon

Top numismatist R Krishnamurthy believes that a 4 Century BC old copper coin, possibly made by the Korkai Pandyas could bring in a whole new perspective to the Sangam era research.

The coin belongs to Krishnamurthy, president of South Indian Numismatic Society and not much was known about its history or rarity. A German collector who was writing a book on South Indian kingdoms wanted some information about his coin collection. After a close inspection, Krishnamurthy found the name ‘Maran’ inscribed in it, where the ‘ma’ resembles the Mauryan Brahmi script, while the ‘ra’ and ‘(i)n’ resemble the Tamil Brahmi script. The coin has inscriptions of an elephant on one side and hillocks on the other. He has also found another coin with the word ‘Maran’ on a square metal plate.

Krishnamurthy states that modern minting technology could have evolved from the unique minting process used to issue this ancient coin. The inscriptions were printed on two separate coins and the blank sides of both were welded together using lead.