DR. KAVAN RATNATUNGA, ASTRONOMIC NUMISMATIST

Dr. Kavan Ratnatunga

With its robust history, Sri Lanka has rich pickings for numismatists. Coins in Sri Lanka date back to punch-marked coins from 500 BCE, with many more varieties in the centuries since then. Coins are often found from excavations at historical sites or when previously unused government land is opened up for development. For example, many coins and artefacts from the Kingdom of Ruhuna, which was in the south-east of Sri Lanka, were discovered when areas previously protected by the jungle just outside the Yala wildlife sanctuary, were opened up for village cultivation in the early 1980s by then Prime Minister R. Premadasa. Villagers digging the land started finding various ancient artefacts, including coins.

For anyone who wants to begin coin collecting, there are numerous books published on the subject. There is also the the Sri Lanka Numismatic Society that began in 1976 for coin collectors in Sri Lanka. Now, they meet on the third Sunday of each month at the Royal Asiatic Society, a part of the Mahaweli Centre in Colombo 7. One of the society's most illustrious members and foremost numismatists is Dr. Kavan Ratnatunga. We spoke to Dr. Kavan, who enlightened us on the the state of coins as artefacts in the country.

Despite his extensive knowledge of coins, Dr. Kavan's initial claim to fame is as an astrophysicist. After studying for his Ph. D at the Australian National University, he joined several other renowned institutes around the world, such as the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (famed for being the academic home of Albert Einstein, after his immigration to the United States), the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Canada, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre, the Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University. In 1992, he joined the Hubble Telescope Project and later researched data from the Hubble telescope at the Carnegie Mellon University, where he made several discoveries.

Dr. Kavan explained that his love of coins, much like his love of astronomy, also began at a young age, when his father and grandfather casually collected and passed down some coins to him. But his own collection only truly began around 1993, when he attended a coin show in Baltimore, at which a seller from Spink, a reputed auction and collectibles company based in London, was offering 11th Century gold coins from Sri Lanka.

“It was the first time that I realised that I could buy one of these and own an 11th Century gold coin from Sri Lanka,” he said. “So, my question to him was, ‘How do I know that it's authentic?', because I couldn't believe that this guy [had this]. He looked at me and said, ‘We are Spink of London, founded in 1666. Why are you asking us that stupid question?' Anyway, I took his word for it [and] bought the coin. I realise now, with more knowledge after 20 years, that the coin he did sell me was a fake,” he said with a laugh. “I have actually published on my website reasons why I think that particular old coin is a fake.”

Walking into Dr. Kavan's home is like walking into a museum gallery, with statues and artefacts at every corner. These include a to-scale Lego replica of a Saturn V rocket and an ancient grinding stone from the Anuradhapura era. A carving of a design from an ancient Elephant and Swatika coin adorns his doorway. Dr. Kavan's collection spans from 300 BCE to the current era, and it is extensively documented on his website on coins—lakdiva.org—where over 1,000 Sri Lankan coins have been documented.

To read the complete article, see:
Shortchanging Our Past: A Conversation On Coin Collecting With Dr. Kavan Ratnatunga (https://roar.media/english/life/in-the-know/shortchanging-our-past-a-conversation-on-coin-collecting-with-dr-kavan-ratnatunga/)

To watch the video, see:
The Astronomic Numismatist (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYW_Zj97gLw)

To visit Kavan's web sites, see:
http://coins.lakdiva.org/
http://notes.lakdiva.org/

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web