A Case of Arbitrage in a Worldwide Trade: Roman Coins in India (original) (raw)
Related papers
Notae Numismaticae, 2020
This paper focuses on a relatively unknown group of published and unpublished Roman gold coins and their imitations from India with a large gold plug placed behind the head of an emperor. This phenomenon was briefly discussed by Peter Berghaus, who rightly noticed that the size of the filling on those coins suggests that the purpose for placing such material into the hole was different than simply the repair of a piercing made previously for a piece of jewellery. He considers the possibility that the holes were made in order to check whether those coins were plated or not and were later refilled with gold so that the coins could return to the money market. I would like to present a different explanation of this phenomenon. I would argue that those coins were perforated and plugged in order to adjust their weight. Such an adjustment let them be used as money in the Subcontinent. Similar phenomena from various parts of the world and time periods constitute the key to understand the purpose of plugging those coins and those analogies are examined in this paper as well.
Roman Coins in India and their impact.pdf
ROMAN COINS IN INDIA AND THEIR IMPACT KANCHAN GANGULY The English word ‘Numismatic’ is derived from latin word ‘Numisma’, means ‘study of coin’. Coins are remarkably durable objects and remained in circulation for long periods of times after they were originally issued. There are several series of foreign coins found in India. It is often applied in India to coins by dynasties of non-indigenous origin, as well as to coins imported from abroad. Among such coins, I would like to discuss some of the best coins found in Ancient India, the Roman coinages. So I shall pick up only a few of them to illustrate the relevance of their study, imported into India by a way of trade, brought by the Indians and left behind by the travelers. The discovery of a large number of Roman coins in India should originally indicate about commercial contacts of their origin. The coins are actually used for payments, but their value would have been determined by the worth of their metal in the Indian market. The Roman coins imported as bullion could have been used in certain areas and periods as media of exchange. It containing precious metals such as gold and silver will have arrived in India as trade consignments. The importance of the Roman coins in India goes beyond their commercial implications. The impact and influences of Roman coins directly reflects on Indian coins. The arrival in India of large number of Roman coins can however be dated to the early phase of Indo-Roman trade, the period 30 BC - 45 AD. The coins are found in various parts of India, like Andhrapradesh, Gujrat, Nasik, Kerala and Tamilnadu. The issues of gold aurei and silver denarii coins exported to India were carefully selected with weight-standard and high gold and silver content. The coins are generally used as a medium of exchange, as raw material for the indigenous coinage, and as ornaments for the natives. In the present essay an attempt has to be made to investigate the impact and influence of Roman coins on India. The types, techniques, weight-standard, metal, variety of these coins have to be studied. Since a large number of research papers, some monographs and books are available for serious researcher. Here an attempt will be made to acquaint the layman about the significance and importance of the foreign coins specially the Roman coins found in India.
Kujūla Kadphises' "Roman" Coin: an Issue for Merchants
Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 30, Issue 1, 2024
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license. The paper studies a copper coin type issued during the reign of the Kuṣāṇ king Kujūla Kadphises (ca. 40/50–90 AD) called “Roman Emperor Type”. These coins, dated towards the end of the first century AD, present on the obverse the image of a ruler recalling the imperial iconography of the Julio-Claudian period, and on the reverse Kujūla himself seated. The coin is a real innovation in the history of ancient Indian numismatics and can be the starting point to understand the political choices of Kujūla in a context still embryonic for the Kuṣāṇs. This paper, through the literary, epigraphic, and archaeological sources at our disposal, aims to demonstrate that the issuing was influenced not only by the halo of authority that the Romans had in India, but mainly by the economic and religious context of the city of Taxila, which the sovereign used as a place of experimentation for this particular hybrid type of coin.
East & West, 2023
The Muziris papyrus loan agreement shows that the Arabarchs, contractors for the collection of duties on goods from the Indian Ocean, provided financial support to merchants engaged in trade with southern India through their paralemptes, the chief of their operating staff. The identification of the praevalens manceps Demetrius mentioned by Pliny the Elder with the homonymous arabarch mentioned by Flavius Josephus shows that the Arabarchs also granted maritime loans to merchants who exported to Italy goods subject to the duties they had to collect in Alexandria. As per their tax services and financial support, the Arabarchs collected the proceeds from virtually all sales of goods imported from the Indian Ocean to Alexandria and then re-exported to Puteoli, and eventually liquidated both the imperial Treasury and the merchants. Indian findings show that the coins exported to India were carefully selected. Therefore, the Arabarchs played a pivotal role in determining the selection of coins destined for export.
Indo‐Portuguese Coins: A Preliminary Review
Portuguese were the first among the Europeans to get footage in India. They took advantage of the internal rivalry existed among the local rulers over trade and this helped them to slowly establish forts and colonies in different parts of India. Their tactical approach paved way for them to get substantial leap in trade and commerce, making them economically powerful to start minting coins. Minting coins was not only a fiscal necessity of their government, but also a Fatah‐namah – a declaration of their success in establishing the supremacy for smooth trade. Coins were minted in gold, silver, copper, tin and tutenag throughout the Portuguese territories. Minting coins continued till the Anglo‐Portuguese treaty signed in AD 1880. This treaty made the Portuguese coins in India obsolete and the English Rupee and Anna system came into existence as the only legal tender. The paper deals with the Indo‐Portuguese gold coin Cruzado, silver coins Esparas, Xerafin, Tanga, Rupia and Pardaos, copper coins Bazarucos, Atia, Tanga, Reis and Dinheiro, tin coin Roda and tutenag coin Reis. Their denominations, emblems and legends are discussed.
AN APPRAISAL OF THE NEWLY FOUND ROMAN IMPERIAL COIN OF OCTAVIAN AUGUSTUS
We report an unreported Roman Imperial silver trade coin of Octavian Augustus without legend on the obverse side, found somewhere in Tamil Nadu, India. The literary comparison is done with existing catalogs and books to establish the narrative that, this unreported coin has no legend on the obverse.