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APRIL, 1913.)
THE OBSOLETE MALAY TIN CURRENCY
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These figures, even on Stein's statements (pp. 8, 14) can be cut down to half or a quarter, and in tact probably represented a still smaller sum, bringing the actual payment to a reasonable and Credible amount.
All this leads to the conclusion that the legend record's a transaction that really took place and that Anāthapiņcika bought the ground and expended on it a sum that was paid in ingots of cttrrency. The sculptures show that in the centary before Christ such ingots were usually stamped, and the legend of the 6th Century A.D. shows that they also often took the form of animals and common objects.
As regards Europe and the near East, Professor Ridgeway, in a note to Mr. Skeat, says he has "silver ingot from Russia called grivna or neck-ring, once used as currency and found in graves along with the actual silver ueck-ring. In modern times the term grivna (plu, grirny) wieans a coin worth 10 kopek.
Professor Ridgeway also quotes 6 a passage from Brugsch, Hist. of the Pharoahs, Eng trans. 2nd ed., I., 386, when referring to the days of Thothmes III. and Rameses II. of Egypt (. 1500-1809 B. C.) :-"Solid images of animals in stone or brase in the shape of recumbent oxen took the place of our [modern European] weights." And he gives an illustration of an ancient Egyptian weighing by a steelyard or graduated balance with bull and ring weights.67
Professor Ridgeway farther quotes (p. 271) Professor R. S. Poole :—"The sanction of the LXX., and the use of weights bearing the form of lions, bulls and geese by the Egyptians, Assyrians and probably Persians, must make us hesitate before we abandon a rendering the Septuagint "lamb" for Hebrew qesita; translated “piece of money” in Gen. xxiii. 19: Joshua xxiv. 32: and Job xlii. 11] so singularly confirmed by the relatiou of the Latin pecunia
cumulative property : money] and pecus [cattle, including sheep]." In support of this statement Professor Ridgeway exhibits (p. 271) two stone "lamb" weights from Syria and Persia respectively and a further illustration of the transfer of the "lamb" weight to the stamp on money by a Phoenician coin from Salamis in Cyprus (p. 272).
In Burma the chinthé is a mythological lion, and the to is a mythological deer (half deer, half horse),60 and both are representative of guardian spirits. Examination of various forms, which these creatures assume in sculptare, picture and engraving, show them to be respectively the greatly degenerated modern descendants in a far country of the ancient Assyrian guardians, the winged lion and the winged bull. The Assyrians also used models, both of the lion and the
46 Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standardo, p. 128. + Lor. cit., from Leipsius, Denkmäler, p. 331. 4. Madden, Jewish Coinage, p. 7.
+ About 1892 I secured a silver "lamb" from a Baghdadi Jew in Rangoon. In 1906 Prof. Barton recognised tortoine bronze weight in Palestine with a Hebrew inscription showing it to be a quarter noseph (shekel). This togloise was a Phoenician symbol and became transferred to the onoe widely spread Aeginetan "tortoise" coinage of ancient Greece, Quarterly Statement, Palestine Exploration Fund, October 1912, pp. 182 f.
* In practice the to has now become a "lion;" see infra, p. 123. There can be little doubt, however, that the to of the Burmese is of the same origin as the national guardian ki-lin, of the Chinese, transferred to Japan as the kirin, both in its winged lion and winged horse-deer form. Whatever can be proved as regards the one in referepos to origin will hold good of the other: vide Kaempfer, Hist. of Japan, 1690 : reprint of 1908, Vol. I, pp. 191-92 ; figs. 25, 26 and 28. Gould, Mythical Monsters, 1886, hes a valuable Chapter (I. p. 558) on the unicorn with which he connects the ki-lin and its songeners, showing the instructive gonneotion of the lu (unicorn) with Chinos repremontation of the sphinx (p. 860, fig. 85-7).
