First minted by polities in north-central Myanmar as early as the fourth century AD, silver coins bearing Rising Sun and Srivatsa motifs have been found in numerous archaeological contexts across Southeast Asia from Vietnam to Bangladesh. Strong standardisation in the design of these coins highlights patterns of trade and cultural interaction across this region that are otherwise underexplored. Here, the authors draw on a dataset of 245 coins from museums in Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar, identifying die links that support trade routes between widely disparate areas, and illuminating the utility of die studies in counteracting the illicit trafficking of antiquities.
