| SPECIFICATIONS | ||
| Alloy | Copper | |
| Type | ? | |
| Diameter | 9.7 mm | |
| Thickness | 1.7 mm | |
| Weight | 0.57 gms | |
| Shape | Circular | |
| Edge | grains | |
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| Unpublished |
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This item is of the same weight of an Aka, which I thought may possibly be an unstruck virgin flan?. One side feels slightly convex and the other concave as apparent in the scan above of the edge of the coin.
The fine grains are like those found on one side of some gold Pagoda coin of south India. The site in Ruhuna is close to Katharagama, an ancient site of Hindu worship that attracted pilgrims from South India for centuries.
It is not listed in the 1999 catalog by Osmund Bopearachchi and Rajah Wickramasinhe titled Ruhuna. An Ancient Civilization Re-visited but was obtained directly from the same collector who provided most of the items for that book.
A X-ray scan and high magnification imaging showed unexpectedly that some if not all of the grains are hollow. It is probably of modern fabrication.
Simple XRF observations done subsequently at CMU showed that All tha glitters is however not gold. It was mainly Copper with a trace of iron.
I have not seen a coin like this cataloged. If anyone can identify this coin or has seen one like it please let me know details about it.
The coin was scanned at 600dpi and displayed at 600dpi. It was obtained in 2001 December from Mr A. Ratnayaka a collector in Katharagama, Lanka.