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Auction: 16048 - Timed Auction - The South Asian Coins of Dr. Philippe Taugourdeau
Lot: 513

Early India, Ujjain (Malwa), pre-Mauryan period (c.300-272 BC), square AE Unit, 4.55g, multi-symbol type, standing figure (believed to be Siva), bull or horse, tree in railing, with triskeles punch bottom left, rev. Ujjain symbol, with swastikas in circles at end of arms, and taurine symbols between (Kothari reverse type 7); Mauryan Period (c.272-187 BC), fractional AE Units (2) 1.00, 0.61g, similar proto-Siva figure between tree in railing and Ujjain symbol, rev. Ujjain symbol (Kothari type 12), square lead Unit, 6.41g, tree with ancillary symbols (unlcear), rev. Ujjain symbol (Kothari type 7) (Kothari, 19, 32, 61; BMC pl.XXXVIII, 11-12; Pieper -, 283-4, 401), the first with surface adhesions, but extremely well struck for type, very fine, the fractional Units very fine to good very fine, the last somewhat corroded, about fine, extremely rare (4)

Ujjayini (Ujjain) was the capital of Avanti Janapada, situated in Malwa. It was an important trade centre from the earliest times and continued in this role throughout the Mauryan and Sunga eras and into the Satavahana period. The four-armed symbol common to the reverse of these coins has become known as the 'Ujjain symbol,' although it is not certain that all coins with this feature were issued in Ujjain itself. The die-struck copper issues are believed to have been used to facilitate local trade, and are mostly anonymous. This makes them difficult to date; Pieper suggests they appeared during the second century BC, but Kothari dates them from an earlier period, and it is his dates I give for the next seven lots.

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