Coins of Chieftains
Parts of the Sangam age Tamil country were ruled over by several independent chieftains, along side the three crowned monarchs. Among them, coins belonging to the chieftains of the Malayaman clan have been found in Tamil Nadu. Many of them contain a written legend on the obverse and all of them have the image of a flowing river on their obverse. Based on the legends some of these coins have been assigned to specific rulers such as Tirukkannan, also known as Malaiyan Choliya Enadi Tirukkannan, and Tirumudi Kari. A series of coins without a legend but with a horse as the principal motif on the obverse have been assigned to the Malayaman chieftains, because of the river symbol on the obverse. Numismatist R. Krishnamurthy, dates these coins to the period between 100 BCE and 100 CE.
Read more about this topic: Sources Of Ancient Tamil History, Numismatic Sources
Famous quotes containing the words coins and/or chieftains:
“A war undertaken without sufficient monies has but a wisp of force. Coins are the very sinews of battles.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)
“Much wondering to see upon all hands, of wattles and woodwork made,
Your bell-mounted churches, and guardless the sacred cairn and the rath,
And a small and a feeble populace stooping with mattock and spade,
Or weeding or ploughing with faces a-shining with much-toil wet;
While in this place and that place, with bodies unglorious, their chieftains stood....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)