| Over a period of roughly fourteen hundred years, from the early fifth century until the middle of the nineteenth, nearly one thousand different cointypes were produced in Southeast Asia, struck in gold, silver, tin and brass. This coin-producing area extends from the eastern rim of the Bay of Bengal to the Pacific coast of Viet Nam, and from the highlands of Burma, Thailand and Laos, to the islands of Sumatra, Java and the Philippines. This native coinage provides valuable clues about dynastic succession in the region, the nature of trade on a local and regional basis, and the movement of religious ideas throughout Southeast Asia. Despite this richness, native Southeast Asian coinage is a largely untapped resource for historical research, due, in part, to the absense of a general survey of indigenous coin issues.; This dissertation represents a first step toward making native coinage more accessible to scholars and researchers. It is based on research conducted in Southeast Asia, in major United States and European collections, through correspondence with collectors, dealers and museums in the United States, Europe and Asia, and on previously published studies of Southeast Asian coinage. The first half of the thesis is devoted to mainland coinages from Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, along with related developments in Bengal and Assam. The second half is concerned with island Southeast Asia: Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, Java, Borneo, Sulawesi and the Philippines.; Within each section a general introduction is followed by a compilation of literary sources bearing on indigenous coin production, chiefly from inscriptions, chronicles and travel accounts. This is supplemented by a descriptive typology of known coinage, with information on coin design, manufacture, weight standards, and the geographical distribution of coinfinds. When possible, bibliographical citations refer to published examples of native cointypes. Representative coin illustrations, maps, tables and a comprehensive bibliography of Southeast Asian coin studies are included. |
