Century 3rd BCE. to 1st CE - Lanka
Inscribed Lead Token with Turtle

This Inscribed Lead token found in Akurugoda is Plate Specimen A.19. illustrated in 1999 book by Osmund Bopearachchi and Rajah Wickramasinhe Ruhuna. An Ancient Civilization Re-visited .

SPECIFICATIONS
AlloyPb
TypeCast
Diameter13.7 mm
Thickness2.7 mm
Weight2.27 gms
MintRuhuna
OBRW_A19_OBVERSE OBRW_A19_REVERSE

Obverse : Marine Turtle within an annulus of triangular teeth pointing outwards
Reverse : Legend in Brahmi - cu da sa ma na ka ha around two symbols atcenter.

OBRW_A19_drawing

The text on this particular coin is retranslated and discussued by Pushparatnam in his 2002 book Ancient Coins of Sri Lankan Tamil Rulers, as Coin 7 Figure 11 on page 50, among line drawings of 11 coins from the OBRW Ruhuna catalog.

The figure is not a tortoise as identified in OBRW but a Marine Turtle as published in paper Ancient lead coins, amulets and artifacts depicting turtles from Akurugoda, Southeastern Sri Lanka by Anslem de Silva, Kavan Ratnatunga, Frederick Medis, Indraneil Das, Siri Munasinghe. 2016 RADIATA 25(4) p. 12-28

Click here for longer discussion of items from Ancient Ruhuna and links to other Plate coins from this book in the lakdiva collection.

The specimen was scanned at 600 dpi and displayed at 400 dpi.
It was obtained in 2016 May from Lalith Raddella in Colombo who had purchased a selection from Raja Wickramasinghe.