153, Lot: 104. Estimate $150. Sold for $190. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CEYLON (Sri Lanka). Period of the Chola Invasion. Circa 990-1070. AV Kahavanu (20mm, 4.38 g). “Lord of Sri Lanka”, king reclining to right, holding aloft a rosette / King standing facing right, holding aloft a solar symbol; altar, flame, pellets and solar symbols in fields. Cf. Mitchiner, Southern India II, 311; Skanda Collection 222. VF.

The Ceylonese gold Kahavanu in the name of the “Lord of Sri Lanka” are believed to have been struck starting around 960, and continued through the period of the Chola occupation, with Raja Raja Chola completing the conquest around 1001, and continuing until the expulsion of the Cholas by Vijaya Bahu around 1070. The standard anonymous Kahavanu have stereotyped figures of the king holding a sankh shell and lotus respectively on obverse and reverse. These variant types may have been struck at subsidiary mints around the island, or possibly even on the Indian mainland in Tamilnadu.