Palembang pitis
historical currency used by the Palembang Sultanate
The Palembang pitis (also spelled pitjis) was a currency issued by the Palembang Sultanate from the 1600s until 1825 when the sultanate was dissolved and its territory taken over by the colonial government of the Dutch East Indies. The currency consisted of low denomination tin alloy coins which were mostly traded in bulk. Due to the lack of a centralized mint, the pitis often had inconsistent manufacture and were frequently counterfeited.
History
Palembang, like Banten, had become an independent sultanate when the Demak Sultanate declined following the death of Sultan Trenggana in 1546. Thereafter from the 1560s to 1620s, Palembang became an active trade participant in two key products of the region, pepper and tin. During the course of this trade, coins from various local sultanates circulated in Palembang, namely Banten, Siak, Kampar and Jambi, in addition to Chinese cash coins which had already been circulating in the archipelago. Palembang's earliest coinage date from this period, which were tin imitation of Chinese cash with Chinese characters phonetically rendering "pangeran" or "sultan" into panglân (邦闌) and sútan (史丹) respectively, dated between 1600 and 1658. This was followed by an issue with Jawi inscription reading 'alamat sulṭan (علامت سلطان), dated between 1658 and 1710. The second half of the 17th century saw increasing monopoly of the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) in the pepper and tin trade. This severely undermined the regional trading network and undermined the prosperity of local sultanates.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 29, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q62390008. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1825, 1546, 1600 and 1658.
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This entry incorporates text from “Palembang pitis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.