ARTIST RENDERINGS OF SRI LANKA TOKEN IMAGES

These lead tokens were found in last two decades of 20th century, buried around Tissamaharama in Sri Lanka and are dated to 200 BCE. to 200 CE. Lead is used in many of early coins because probably of low melting point. Most are unique and not found in hoards, so unlikely to be coins. They maybe tokens buried in the foundation of houses as is the custom even today. They are very small weighing few grams at most and less than an inch in diameter.

This attempt is not the traditional line drawing of coin, but an attempt to visualize what may have been represented on the coin. Trying to interpret what the ancient Artist who made the token may have tried to illustrate on the token, to aid someone who looks at the token to see some of the detail which is otherwise missed. The ancient art that is illustrated on these lead coins can only be visualized by an artist and not with a camera which can never capture the exact stance and perspective.

Coloured Artwork which are realistic representations of the stylised drawing on coin is by Wildlife Artist Sanjaya Weeratunge.

The adopted methodology is to start with tracing the outline of an enlarged print-out the coin scan on A4 paper. When painting the artist deviates from outline as little as possible to get a realistic representation of the Animal or Human figure. In this way the drawing can be super-imposed on the coin image after appropriate scaling.

We started with 10 Tokens, which he has now completed in the COVID-19 lockdown. He sent me images of artwork which needs to be scanned when I get them after the curfew. The preliminary images with the coin images have been posted below.

Wilfried Pieper's Line drawing of 8 of these coins from the 1999 book Ruhuna. The Ancient Civilization Re-Visited by by Osmund Bopearachchi and Rajah M. Wickramasinhe are also included for reference. Those lead tokens were obtained in 2016 from Lalith Raddella in Colombo who had purchased a selection from Raja Wickramasinghe.

When I sent this page to Wilfried Pieper for comment he said I quote "The images done by the artist are simply wonderful! I Thank him for his encouraging words which will motivate me to ask Sanjaya to paint more of the lead tokens for me.

To read the complete article, see:
Art on Lead Tokens Coins from Ancient Ruhuna (http://coins.lakdiva.org/OBRW/sanjaya_art.html)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web