By the 10th-century, Java had one of the most complex economies in Southeast Asia. Despite the importance of rice farming which acts as the chief tax income for the Javanese courts, the influx of sea trade in Asia between the 10th and 13th centuries forced a more convenient currency to the Javanese economy. During the late 8th-century, ingots made of gold and silver were introduced. These are the early Nusantara coins. [1]
In Java, rice farming was still the main occupation of most households in the village. This continued to provide most of the tax income of the Javanese courts. Later in the period, the northern coasts of Java and Bali became the main center of an affluent export trade in local agricultural products and manufacture, as well as spices e.g. sandalwood from eastern Indonesia. These trade brought goods to distant markets e.g. China and India. The increasing intensity of trade called for a convenient currency in the Javanese society. [2]
During the late 8th-century money took the form of ingots made of gold and silver. These are the earliest recorded coins in Indonesia. The currency in Indonesia is based on weight; the most common units were the kati of 750 grams (26 oz), tahil of 38 grams (1.3 oz), masa2.4 grams (0.085 oz) and kupang0.6 grams (0.021 oz). These units were legal tender for tax payments. The kati, tahil, masa and kupang units remained in use up until the Dutch period. Several trade jargons were introduced in this period, e.g. the Javanese wli, which became the modern Indonesian beli ("buy"), and the Sanskrit wyaya, modern Indonesian term biaya ("expenses") appears in two inscriptions both dated 878 AD. The Javanese coins have no parallels with the style of Indian coins. Most of the Javanese coins were found within the Javanese kingdom of Shailendra. [1]
Most gold coins of 9th and early 10th century Java are stamped with the character ta in nagari script on one side, an abbreviation of tahil. The same character remained on coins until the Kediri period in the 12th-century. [1] Gold coins were usually made in the shape of cubes, carefully crafted and very uniform in size and gold content.
Central Javanese silver coins have very different shapes compared with the gold coins. Most silver coins are round and known as "sandalwood flower" coins referring to the four-petaled flower (quatrefoil) found on the reverse. The silver coins lasted from the early 9th until the 14th century. The same flower appears on one side of older silver ingots from central Java; the other side is stamped with a flowing vase design, which is never found on coins. The obverse of the sandalwood flower coins are stamped with the nagari character ma (abbreviation of masa). [3] [1]
Unlike the gold coins, the silver coins changed rapidly. In only one century, the character ma degenerated very quickly, perhaps because it is different with the Javanese Kawi letter for ma. The shape also changed; in the early 10th-century, the shape of one masa changed from a thick and flat coin to a thin and cup-shaped coin. The silver coins were presumably served as small change. The silver coins were probably created by smiths in the market for use in market transactions. [3] [1]
In Java, beginning at the end of the 10th-century and onwards, more and more Chinese copper coins were imported in greater quantities, as well as Chinese cash and local copies, known as pisis. These coins began to displace the silver alloy coins as small denomination currency. By the mid-14th century, there were so many pisis in circulation, that the Javanese court recognized them as official currency for tax purposes. [3] [1]
In Sumatra, coins were first minted in the 11th-century. Similar sandalwood flower coins like those in Java were discovered in Sumatra, but more of these were made of gold, electrum, and silver alloys. Several 11th-century sites in Sumatra including Barus, Bengkulu, and Muara Jambi were abundant in gold coins, while silver is rare. Similar coins were also found in South Thailand. The Sumatran silver alloy examples are very well made compared with the Javanese silver coins.
Curiously, no coins have been found at Palembang, said to be the center of the Sriwijayan economy. This suggests that coins may have had a limited role in the early Sriwijayan economy. International trades might have been conducted either through the mechanism known as tributary trade or in other form known as administered trade. In administered trade system, equivalencies were established between commodities through diplomatic negotiations rather than bargaining. [1]
The gold piloncitos of the Philippines are a late offshoot of the Indonesian gold coinage, while the bean-like silver "namo" series of the Malay peninsula was presumably an offshoot of the silver and may have evolved into the bullet ( pod duang ) coinage of Sukhothai in Thailand. [4]
A currency is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a system of money in common use within a specific environment over time, especially for people in a nation state. Under this definition, the British Pound sterling (£), euros (€), Japanese yen (¥), and U.S. dollars (US$) are examples of (government-issued) fiat currencies. Currencies may act as stores of value and be traded between nations in foreign exchange markets, which determine the relative values of the different currencies. Currencies in this sense are either chosen by users or decreed by governments, and each type has limited boundaries of acceptance; i.e., legal tender laws may require a particular unit of account for payments to government agencies.
A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by a government. Coins often have images, numerals, or text on them. The faces of coins or medals are sometimes called the obverse and the reverse, referring to the front and back sides, respectively. The obverse of a coin is commonly called heads, because it often depicts the head of a prominent person, and the reverse is known as tails.
Electrum is a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver, with trace amounts of copper and other metals. Its color ranges from pale to bright yellow, depending on the proportions of gold and silver. It has been produced artificially and is also known as "green gold".
Tael, also known as the tahil and by other names, can refer to any one of several weight measures used in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It usually refers to the Chinese tael, a part of the Chinese system of weights and currency. The Chinese tael was standardized to 50 grams in 1959.
Majapahit, also known as Wilwatikta, was a Javanese Hindu-Buddhist thalassocratic empire in Southeast Asia that was based on the island of Java. It existed from 1293 to circa 1527 and reached its peak of glory during the era of Hayam Wuruk, whose reign from 1350 to 1389 was marked by conquests that extended throughout Southeast Asia. His achievement is also credited to his prime minister, Gajah Mada. According to the Nagarakretagama written in 1365, Majapahit was an empire of 98 tributaries, stretching from Sumatra to New Guinea; consisting of present-day Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, southern Thailand, Timor Leste, southwestern Philippines although the scope of Majapahit sphere of influence is still the subject of debate among historians. The nature of Majapahit's relations and influence upon its overseas vassals and also its status as an empire still provokes discussion.
Srivijaya, also spelled Sri Vijaya, was a Buddhist thalassocratic empire based on the island of Sumatra that influenced much of Southeast Asia. Srivijaya was an important centre for the expansion of Buddhism from the 7th to the 11th century AD. Srivijaya was the first polity to dominate much of western Maritime Southeast Asia. Due to its location, Srivijaya developed complex technology utilizing maritime resources. In addition, its economy became progressively reliant on the booming trade in the region, thus transforming it into a prestige goods-based economy.
The silver standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed weight of silver. Silver was far more widespread than gold as the monetary standard worldwide, from the Sumerians c. 3000 BC until 1873. Following the discovery in the 16th century of large deposits of silver at the Cerro Rico in Potosí, Bolivia, an international silver standard came into existence in conjunction with the Spanish pieces of eight. These silver dollar coins played the role of an international trading currency for nearly four hundred years.
The Mataram Kingdom ; also known as Medang Kingdom was a Javanese Hindu–Buddhist kingdom that flourished between the 8th and 11th centuries. It was based in Central Java, and later in East Java. Established by King Sanjaya, the kingdom was ruled by the Shailendra dynasty and Ishana dynasty.
The Netherlands Indies guilder was the unit of account of the Dutch East Indies from 1602 under the United East India Company, following Dutch practice first adopted in the 15th century. A variety of Dutch, Spanish and Asian coins were in official and common usage. After the collapse of the VOC at the end of the 18th century, control of the islands reverted to the Dutch government, which issued silver 'Netherlands Indies' guilder and fractional silver and copper coins until Indonesian independence in 1945.
A sycee or yuanbao was a type of gold and silver ingot currency used in imperial China from its founding under the Qin dynasty until the fall of the Qing in the 20th century. Sycee were not made by a central bank or mint but by individual goldsmiths or silversmiths for local exchange; consequently, the shape and amount of extra detail on each ingot were highly variable. Square and oval shapes were common, but boat, flower, tortoise and others are known. Their value—like the value of the various silver coins and little pieces of silver in circulation at the end of the Qing dynasty—was determined by experienced moneyhandlers, who estimated the appropriate discount based on the purity of the silver and evaluated the weight in taels and the progressive decimal subdivisions of the tael.
"Piloncitos" is a collectors' term for the bead-like gold masa coins used during the aristocratic era of the Philippines and in the early years of Spanish foreign rule, called bulawan in many Philippine languages or salapi ("coin") or ginto in Tagalog. These are pieces that formed part of various degrees of Southeast Asian gold weight such as amás or táhil. Gold coinage was used along with silver coinage in maritime Southeast Asian currency.
The use of historical money in Tibet started in ancient times, when Tibet had no coined currency of its own. Bartering was common, gold was a medium of exchange, and shell money and stone beads were used for very small purchases. A few coins from other countries were also occasionally in use.
Wonoboyo hoard is an important archaeological find of golden and silver artifacts from the 9th century Mataram Kingdom in Central Java, Indonesia. It was discovered in October 1990 in Plosokuning hamlet, Wonoboyo village, Klaten, Central Java, near Prambanan.
The currency of Indonesia, the rupiah, has a long history dating back to its colonial period. Due to periods of economic uncertainty and high inflation, the currency has been re-valued several times.
The economic history of Indonesia is shaped by its geographic location, its natural resources, as well as its people that inhabited the archipelago that today formed the modern nation-state of the Republic of Indonesia. The foreign contact and international trade with foreign counterparts had also shaped and sealed the fate of Indonesian archipelago, as Indians, Chinese, Arabs, and eventually European traders reached the archipelago during the Age of Exploration and participated in the spice trade, war and conquest.
The so-called Lithuanian long currency was a type of money used by the Baltic tribes and in the early Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 12th–15th centuries. It was commodity money in the form of silver ingots. Most often they were semicircular rods about 13 cm (5.1 in) in length and weighted between 100 and 110 g. Other trading centers, notably Kievan Rus' and Veliky Novgorod, developed their own version of such ingots which are known as grivna or grzywna. The ingots were replaced by minted coins in the middle of the 15th century.
The history of Philippine money covers currency in use before the Hispanic era with gold Piloncitos and other commodities in circulation, as well as the adoption of the peso during the Hispanic era and afterwards.
Qing dynasty coinage was based on a bimetallic standard of copper and silver coinage. The Manchu-led Qing dynasty was established in 1636 and ruled over China proper from 1644 until it was overthrown by the Xinhai Revolution in 1912. The Qing dynasty saw the transformation of a traditional cash coin based cast coinage monetary system into a modern currency system with machine-struck coins, while the old traditional silver ingots would slowly be replaced by silver coins based on those of the Mexican peso. After the Qing dynasty was abolished its currency was replaced by the Chinese yuan of the Republic of China.
The cash coins of Indonesia was a historical currency in Indonesia based on Chinese imperial coinage during the Tang dynasty era. It was introduced by the Chinese traders, but did not become popular in Indonesia until Singhasari defeated the Mongol empire in 13th century. Chinese cash coins continued to circulate in Indonesian archipelago for centuries; when the Ming dynasty banned trade with the region, many local rulers started creating their own imitations of Chinese cash coins which were often thinner and of inferior quality. Cash coins produced in Indonesia were made from various materials such as copper-alloys, lead, and most commonly tin.
Barter rings are ring-shaped gold ingots used as currency in the Philippines until the 16th century. These barter rings are bigger than a doughnut in size and are made of nearly pure gold.
