Ancient Kashmir Coinage

Wow, this is difficult. I've got the obverses side by side in Photoshop and am considering. The wear is greater on the first/upper coin in your pic, Paul, which makes assessment more challenging since some devices are flattened out on that specimen. And I believe the bottom coin, although less worn, perhaps has some areas of corrosion that appear to have "broken up" some of its devices/motifs.

Given the overall preponderance of alignments, and taking into account that corrosion and wear could throw some details off, I'm with J1M...I lean towards "yes."

Firstly thanks for everyones replies and for spending your time looking it's really appreciated.

I know I have the added advantage of having the coins in hand and I've been completely unbiased in this summary but I really can't find a dimentional difference between the coins.Another collector stated 'Is it possible different die same engraver' ..I really don't think so as there would be a similar design but this dimensionally accurate?


Over 3 forums at the moment
7 - Yes obverse match
3 - 50-50 obverse match
1 - No...but his reasoning now doesn't stand.

I spent some time over the weekend breaking down and measuring with calipers the different areas of the obverse, here's the results....My conclusion now is it's an obverse die match but open to opinions!


1- Struck a line between the centres of the earings
2- Struck a line along the top line of the Sri and Ja continuing across to hit the symbol Sim on the right.
Conclussion- Distance between lines 1 and 2 match and angular disposition match.Also stikes the Sim symbol at the same point.

Struck 2 lines vertically from the centres of the earings...
3- Dimension match
4- Dimension match
5- Bottom angular line of the Ja symbol touching the outer necklace just below the outer leftside bead, also the top position of the Ya symbol, both match.
6- Line 2 strikes the Sim symbol at the same point, also the 2 necklaces connect at line 2 match.
7- Bottom angular line of the Ja symbol strikes the Sri and vertical centre line match.
8- Bottom 2 vertical lines of the Sri position match.
9- bottom vertical line of Ya touches the 2 fronds of clothing match.
10-11-Dimensions match.

I could go on but I feel this is enough proof of match...
Maybe a big clue having them here in front of me is they look the same...Any thoughts much appreciated..
Paul.

Thanks Bob

Great find, that most recent one...good to see a more complete snapshot of the altar. The set is increasingly impressive, Paul. That group shot would make a great poster. I would think that this must be one of the most complete and important collections of these issues, or on its way to becoming such. Quite an achievement.

Thanks Bob! Yeh sorry it's looking a bit poster'ish' I put a few duplicates of certain rulers in on this one as each one shows different aspects of the design but will take them out on the next reference and leave one per ruler except where there are legend variants...The ref material you sent me has helped tremendously thanks again..

@ january1may...

Not a silly question at all, in fact a very good question!
In my set at the moment there are 20 different rulers starting with Avanti varman 857-883 through to Jagadeva 1199-1213...There are gaps!

Gap 1- Between Parthavarman 906-921 and Chakravarman 923-933 .....Nirjitavarma (921 -923 A.D.)

Gap 2- Between the 1st and 2nd reign of Chakravarman 933--936(Thanks finger slip).....Suravarman I (933 -934 A.D.) AND Sambhuvardhana (935 -936 A.D.)

Gap 3- Between Chakravarman 936-937 and Kshemagupta 950-957/8...... Unmattavanti (937 -939 A.D.) AND Survarman II (939 A.D.) AND Yasaskara (939 -948 A.D.) AND Sangramadeva (948 -949 A.D.) AND Parvagupta (949 -950 A.D.)

From Kshemagupta 958 through to Uccala 1101 complete..

Gap 4- Between Uccala 1101-1111 and Sussala 1113-1120......Radda-Sankharaja (1111 A.D.) AND Salhana (1111-1112/13 A.D.)

Gap 5- Between 1st and 2nd reign of Sussala......Bhiksacara (1120-1121 A.D.)

Gap 6- The biggest! Between Jayasimha 1128-1154/5 and Jagadeva 1199-2012/13.....Parmanuka (1154-64 A.D.) AND Varttideva (1164-1171 A.D.) AND Vopyadeva (1171-1180 A.D.) AND Jassaka (1180-1198 A.D.)

So to summarize..I have 20 there are 35 .....15 to go
To make it worse a lot of the rulers don't just have one coin design as you can see from the Jayasimha group..
lots of legend variants!

As to availability, some of the above are super rare and others I've never seen so will check out museum plate coins to see if they even exist..

Also outside of this date set there are alot of rulers.For example not long ago I attributed a coin for a collector who thought it was a common coin but it turned out to be the son of Jagadeva... Rajadeva (1213-1236 A.D.) rare... he was very happy!

Hope this answers your question...Paul

Great collection. Hats off to your efforts, dedication and excellent research. If you can tell me where from you are sourcing such a variety of coins, I would be thankful.

I have a doubt, which I hope you can clear.

Reign of many of the kings seems to be very short, ranging from less than a year to around 3 years.

Such kings would have issued coins in their name?

Is there a chance that they would have allowed minting of coins on the name of their predecessor itself, considering the circumstances in which they were crowned. Many would have been a namesake king as stop gap arrangement or would have concentrated only on quelling the internal turbulence in the kingdom, with no time to think about other economy related issues.

The hidden Altar!.......Stumbled across a unique detail that so far I've only seen on Abhimanyu and his son Nandi Guptas coins...
Been working on this series lately, as I'm creating a ruler by ruler reference chart with a detailed break down of each king/queen and easy to use Nagari symbol chart..............
A break down of Abhimanyu Gupta AD 957/8-971/2 ref.Mitchiner #174/176
Son of the infamous Didda Rani,he was born around AD 951/52
and was enthroned after the death of his father Kshemagupta around 957/8....As he was only a 5-6 year old boy his mother Didda became regent until his death in AD 972 around the age of 20. At this point, contrary to the belief that she murdered him, for a year she was grief-stricken and immersed herself in an orgy of building, especially to commemorate her son ( Ok could have been a guilty conscience !). She built the Abhimanyusvamin temple and Abhimanyupura town, which is now called Bimyan. She built the Diddasvamin temple, the Diddapura town, and the Diddamath, now called the Diddmar area of Srinagar.

Below shows the legend on both sides in Sharda/Nagari script..

As you can see, in the 2 photos below, on the obverse to the left of the A there is a symbol.This seems to be unique to him and his son Nandi Gupta. Although Mitchiners coverage of this series is quite extensive in relation to the legends used, he does not mention in any detail the other design elements.All other design elements seem to follow my initial obverse breakdown in earlier posts...

Below is the reverse of a didda rani coin showing the altar at 7 oclock...As to why only her son and grandsons coins show this detail on the obverse aswell I have no idea but it's intriguing?