bgriff
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Posts posted by bgriff
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5 hours ago, Ed Snible said:
@TuckHard thanks for breaking the inscription down for me.
My frustration with understanding Bgriff's dating on Zeno 195611 is that this coin is in the "Early Sultanate Period c. 1610-61" and he says "The king's title was Pangeran until at least 1721." It isn't clear at all why this particular coin is to be dated "Sri Pangeran Ratu 1642-c. 1661". Perhaps I need to read through some JONS articles?
One of my interests is getting the inscription into the computer. I notice many numismatic sites skip non-Western inscriptions, or use them as images. Neither Zeno nor CoinTalk allows Javanese in posts, but even sites that allow these languages don't use them.
I've gotten close to Bgriff's inscription. I am struggling with the first part.
꧋ Wikipedia calls this "adeg-adeg (a starter)". Does Bgriff see this on a coin, or did this get copied out of a catalog like a bullet?
ꦱꦿꦶ I don't know what this is, I've seen it used for "SRI". Bgriff uses something that looks like a combo of ꦫꦶ "JAVANESE LETTER RA with JAVANESE VOWEL SIGN WULU" and ꦰꦶ "JAVANESE LETTER SA MAHAPRA with JAVANESE VOWEL SIGN WULU". I can't figure out how to get that into the computer.
Next is ꦥꦔꦺꦫꦤ꧀ ꦫꦎ. In my post above the last glyph was ꦠꦺ "JAVANESE LETTER TA with JAVANESE VOWEL SIGN TALING" but now I am using ꦎ "JAVANESE LETTER O".
This coin is attributed to a particular king, as it is within a sequence of rulers. It is documented this ruler enlarged the size of the pitis and began that shortly after reaching the age to rule directly. Before that was a period of regency when the queen (Ratu Mas) ruled directly. That corresponds to the smaller pitis reading "Picis Jambi" with no title.
The inscription is both crude and stylized, but legible. It is similar to that used on one type at Banten, also a large tin coin usually attributed to Siak, but maybe not correctly. "Sri" is composed as a stacked pair of consonants, then with the loop changing the inherent vowel 'a' to 'i'. But what's on the coin is just a fragment. There are a couple possible ways to compose it. The two vertical bars mark the beginning of the inscription. They are not clear on my coin, but are on yours. You have the letters shifted by one. ꧋ (Sri) ꦥ Pa ꦔꦺ Nge ꦫ Ra ꦤ꧀ N ꦫ Ra ꦠꦸ Tu . On later issues Ratu is spelled Rato (I transliterate as ratou).
This ꦱꦿꦶ is also a way to write 'sri', and ought to have been used. The supposed Siak tin coin has 'sri' written more fully, as the two consonants stacked. What I show uses a formal form of 'sa' with its initial loop suppressed, not a reliable interpretation, just a guess. OK I see you actually figured that out! To enter in a computer, if it
supports ꦱꦿꦶ then by all means use it. Jambi pitis use more or less the Bali version of Javanese, which has smaller initial loops, sometimes just a knob. My computer does not support the Balinese form.
Ruler names are a big headache. Each prince had a given name, but that didn't always get recorded. When the Dutch and English established their settlements at Jambi, at the same time, the elderly ruler was titled "the Panembahan" meaning honored gentleman. His name is not known. Technically Jambi was a raj, vassal to a ruler in Java. The local tradition was to have co-ruling father and son, with the son taking on daily routine tsks, including coining, and the elder doing statecraft. Gradually the elder went into retirement, as the next generation came up. 'Pangeran' means prince, with a multitude of ranks. Ratu means queen. Pangeran Ratu means prince by the queen. In some cases it was the elder, in others the younger prince. In the late 1620's, the Panembahan died, then in rapid succession a couple of his sons and grandsons, from smallpox. The wife of one of the sons ended up ruling in her own name for about 15 years.
As things went along, the eldest retired king was designated a sultan, purely as an honor, when their overlords in Mataram became weak. Then the active younger king was designated a sultan. As such each was given an Arabic name. Those give us something to use for a name. Below pangeran ratu was pangeran dipati, which could mean a second son, or a grandson. Sometimes a prince had a unique "pangeran" title.
About 1687 the lineage was split into two brothers against each other. That went on into the 1700's, and really confuses things. One ruled the downstream town where the Dutch were. The other ruled the upstream interior. Repeated attempts to reconcile that failed. Finally one line completely died out with no heirs.
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Pre-modern Southeast Asian coins
in Non-Western
Posted
The Saran Singh book is all but impossible to obtain as a paper copy. Everybody has an electronic version. It does not cover territory included in modern Indonesia, ergo not Sumatra. For Jambi, Millies is used, which shows some that are now rare, but is missing many that are now common. Jambi pitis tend to show up
in quantity, then not be seen for years again. Probably because of river dredging. Local people comb through dredging sludge meticulously for coins and artifacts.
Several previously unknown types, but attributable, turned up over the last few years.
Scott Semans has quantities of sea-salvage N. Song cash from near Palembang, more or less dead stock. I just went through 100-coin samples of 4 different site pickings. One was about half later trade cash. Most in badly corroded condition. One was better grade N. Song but completely picked over. Two lots were awful condition. A portion of what commonly would be attributed as original N. Song among those may have been later. Distribution of reign titles was skewed. The hoard must date to no later than 1575 from the coins present. A mid-1600's common Song imitation series, pest coins really, were not present.
Re Jambi, there is a book from 1993 by Barbara Andaya: 'To Live as Brothers, Southeast Sumatra in the 17th and 18th centuries' which is a trove of information. The "two brothers" are Jambi and Palembang. No catalog I know of covers Jambi pitis. If you are looking at the Wikipedia coverage for Javanese writing, it is very good. The coin inscriptions do not use all that complexity. I tried to make Zeno useful as a Jambi catalog, but it has mistakes the admin doesn't want to re-work. He also asked for writing out of all inscriptions, as on the coins, to post under category headings but then didn't use them. A problem with the Frank Robinson booklet is no written out inscriptions, which are Arabic, at least more familiar and accessible then Javanese. A parallel booklet for Jambi would have to explain the writing, the complicated history,
etc.
Lettering below: "Ja-n-br-haj" is what it looks like, but probably is intended 'Cha-n-pi-raj'. The local Chinese for "Jambi" would have been "Champi" or "Chanpi".