Vol. X, No. 11.] Numismatic Supplement No. XXIV. 471 



[N.S.] 



142. Review. 



R. B. Whitehead : Catalogue of the Coins in the Panjab 

 Museum, Lahore. Vol. II, Coins of the Mughal Emperors. 



It is with no ordinary pleasure we record the publication 

 of a work that for many years to come will prove invaluable 

 to all who contemplate a serious study of Indian Numis- 

 matics. This work owes its origin to the wise and public 

 spirited action of the Panjab Government in sanctioning the 

 preparation of a detailed and adequately illustrated catalogue 

 of the rich collection of coins in the Museum at Lahor, 

 action abundantly justified by the recent issue from the 

 Clarendon Press of the two large and handsome volumes com- 

 piled by Mr. Richard B. Whitehead, I.C.S. The Govern- 

 ment were fortunate in being able to secure for this under- 

 taking a scholar who, as Honorary Secretary of the Numisma- 

 tic Society of India, had already given proof of special 

 competence. Those who were familiar with his earlier papers 

 on Indian Numismatics awaited this larger work of his with 

 high expectations, and now with the catalogue in our hands 

 we feel that our best hopes have been fulfilled. 



So far as relates to the Mughal coins of India, two, or at 

 the most but three, books have hitherto been recognized as 

 authoritative. There is Stanley Lane-Poole's volume in the 

 British Museum Catalogue, a volume published so far back 

 as 1892, and there is also Nelson Wright's admirable contri- 

 bution to the Indian Museum Catalogue. To both of these 

 and to Rodgers's List — one can scarcely call it a Cata- 

 logue --of the Mu gh al coins that twenty-one years ago were 

 in the Cabinets of the Panjab Museum, every collector who 

 has specialized in this series will cordially acknowledge his 

 deep debt of obligation. But henceforward along with these 

 Mr. Whitehead's recent volumes must be assigned an honoured 

 place, perhaps I should say the place of honour. Certainly 

 Mr. Rodgers's List, eminently serviceable as it was in its day, 

 is now definitely superseded, for in future any one desirious 

 of informing himself regarding the coins in the Panjab 

 Museum will be sure to turn to the presentment of them 

 supplied by Mr. Whitehead's finely illustrated catalogue. 



The British Museum volume also will now inevitably be 

 relegated to a comparatively subordinate position, and not 

 merely because the coins therein registered fall in number far 

 below those to be found not only in the Museums at Calcutta 

 and Lahor. but even in the cabinets of some three or four 

 private collectors. The simple truth is the published cata- 

 logue, however representative, it may have been of the 

 Mughal coins possessed by the British Museum some two 

 decades ago, is not by any means a satisfactory record of the 



