Extract from the 2015 Book Coined by Kabir Sehgalpages 244-247 - ISBN 978-1-4555-7852-8
Extract from the 2015 Book Coined by Kabir Sehgal
pages 244-247 - ISBN 978-1-4555-7852-8
A Galaxy of Money
It took an astrophysicist for me to see how universal the symbols on our money can be.
Kavan Ratnatunga left Sri Lanka in 1978 and studied at Australia National University for his PhD in astrophysics. He worked at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study (where Albert Einstein worked the last twenty-one years of his life) and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. At Johns Hopkins University, he used automated image analysis to study the first quad gravitational lens found with the NASA Hubble Space Telescope (a lensed image is created when the gravitational field of a large entity distorts the image of a more remote entity). 32 In 2005, Kavan retired and returned to his native country.
And that's where we met, in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, on a sweltering, sticky day. As the president of the Sri Lankan Numismatic Society. Kavan was eager to share his research on indigenous money. "I used to map the universe, now I map the galaxy of Lankan 33 money,-he said.
In 1998, he launched his website, which has high-resolution images of more than six hundred Lankan coins, by far the most comprehensive on the Internet. Kavan has become a guru to Lankan monetary officials, who consult with him when they curate their numismatic exhibitions. He also has a degree in museology and is working toward his second PhD, this one in archaeology. This astrophysicist-turned-archaeologist didn't just come back to earth; he goes beneath it, so to speak, analyzing the metallic makeup of once-buried coins.
Kavan uses a rigorous scientific approach to study the physical propｬ erties of coins. He once procured a hoard of one hundred copper coins made during the tenth-century CE reign of Rajaraja Chola I of Lanka. He measured the weight, thickness, and diameter of each coin and graphed the results. He found a correlation between the weight and the thickness. But there was no correlation between the weight and the diameter. This allowed him to infer that the coins were likely struck from cooling drops of molten metal rather than a cold planchet, a metal with which coins are made. 34 Determining how a coin was made can reveal clues about the society in which it was created庸or example, whether coin makers were using primitive technology or advanced techniques learned from trading partners. This astrophysicist is able to turn a hoard of coins into a forensic treasure chest of historical knowledge.
"Archaeology isn't so different from astronomy. In both cases, you are observing the past and can't experiment," he declared. "There are also many astronomical symbols on ancient Lankan money."
The oldest so-called Puranas coins found in Lanka date back to the third century BCE and are made from silver. On the front is the sun, which was the mark of the Magadha Kingdom, which ruled what's now eastern India. The sun may represent King Bimbisara, a patron of Buddha, or Ashoka, who dispatched his son to Lanka to spread Buddhism. 35 There is another coin that blends Kavan's interests of money and space-a copper one that was issued during the reign of King Mahasena in the third century CE. On the back are four dots inside a circle. Kavan hints that this symbol looks like a quad gravitational lens but it is definitely something else, though it's too worn-out to determine. 36 A more modern coin, one of irregular shape, was made from copper during the ninth century CE and exhibits the influence of the First Pandyan Empire, which lasted from the sixth to tenth centuries CE and stretched from southern India to northern Lanka. On the front is a crescent moon with a bull seated beneath it. 37 In the sixteenth century, an even more modern coin, the Venetian gold ducat, which was probably used by the Portuguese who had settled Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was formerly called), was adorned with astronomical symbols, thirteen stars that surround Jesus Christ.
Kavan kept returning to the astronomical symbols that we put on our money, such as the sun, the moon, and stars. These celestial objects are universal, found on money no matter what era, as evidenced by thousands of years of Lankan money, and no matter what geographical area, as in the thirteen stars on the 1838 Liberty Seated Half Dime in the United States, and the Sun on the 1813 one-real coin of the Provincias del Rio de la Plata in Argentina. The reasons for using these symbols vary, from honoring a sun e a to equating a king with the divine or symbolizing various colonies.
...
Kavan helped me recognize that some monetary symbols aren't just astronomical but universal. When you spend a dollar, you aren't just handing over something with an American emblem; you are exchanging something bearing a symbol that has been used by humans in various cultures over thousands of years. Despite the many ways in which countries try to make their money unique, some symbols continue to shine on.
Based on Kabir Sehgal's interview with me on 2013 November 27th at TajSamudra Hotel, in Colombo Sri Lanka which he included in the last chapter of this Book among 5 collectors. The Book is introduced by him in YouTube Video.