XX VI. 



WINTER SESSIONS/ 



THE SECOND MEETING of the Winter Session was held on 

 Monday, February ist, 1904, at 1.15 p.m., in the Reading Room 

 of the County Museum. In the absence of the President the 

 chair was taken by W. H. Hudleston, Esq., one of the Vice- 

 Presidents. Forty-two persons were present at the meeting. 



THE MEMBERSHIP. Six candidates were proposed; four were 

 elected. 



EXHIBITS. 



BY CAPTAIN ELWES AND LIEUT.- COL. MAINWARING: 



A SERIES OF BACTRIAN COINS. Captain ELWES explained that the idea of the 

 exhibit was to trace the connection between Greek art and the Bactrian repre- 

 sentation of it. Bactria was a province annexed to the Persian Empire by 

 Cyrus, and remained part of it until the conquest of Persia by Alexander about 

 330 B.C. Upon the death of Alexander and the apportionment of the territory 

 conquered by him among his generals, Bactria and the adjacent countries fell to 

 Seleucus. He and his descendants ruled over it until 254, when Diodotus after a 

 revolt established the Greek kingdom of Bactria. 



Colonel MAINWARING observed that there seemed to be some doubt whether 

 there was any Greek influence on the sculpture of the North-West frontier of 

 India ; but these coins spoke for themselves. They bore the heads of kings and 

 figures with Greek writing around them, for instance the word "BA2IAET2." 

 He had had communications on the subject with Professor Eapson, the keeper of 

 coins and medals at the British Museum. Nearly all the coins exhibited by him 

 were procured by him (a few weeks before the close of the second phase of the 

 Afghan War, 1879-80) from the native bazaar money-changers in the city of 

 Cabul. They had been picked up by natives at different periods on the sites of 

 ancient Buddhist mounds, or "stupas," in the vicinity of Cabul or in different 

 parts of Afghanistan, and were placed by them with modern copper coins of the 

 realm, and used for ordinary change purposes. He was lucky enough to " spot " 

 them as they lay in a heap on metal or wicker trays in front of the bazaar shops, 

 and he exchanged a few rupees for a good number of them. The two silver 

 Indo-Scythic coins, respectively of Menander and Apollodotus, were given to him 

 by Mr. F. Cunningham (Assistant Political Officer, Khyber Field Force), son of 

 the late General Sir Alexander Cunningham, B.E. , an authority on archaeology 

 and numismatics in India. A few of the Bactrian coins he purchased from natives 

 in the Swat Valley towards the close of the Chitral Eelief Campaign, 1895, these 

 having been found or dug up at various times, on the sites of Grasco- Indian and 

 Ancient Buddhist cities in that part of the iiorth-western frontier of India. 



