538 Third Memoir of the Ancient Coins. [Sept. 



nated with a single Persian coin — unless fig. 9. of the just noted 

 Hindu series have a Persian legend, which may seem to intimate 

 that the city's extinction was about the period of the introduction of 

 the language, which may have been contemporaneous with the rise 

 of the Mahommedan sovereignty of Ghazni. The coins of its princes 

 have Persian legends, to prove which, we have inserted a silver coin 

 of the celebrated Sultan Mahmud : none of his coins or of his 

 father, Sabektegin Kha'n, have been found at Beghrdm, where those 

 of the Caliphs so numerously occur. 



Although Beghrdm, inferring from the presence of topes or sepul- 

 chral monuments on its site and in its vicinity, may be supposed 

 at some period to have been a capital, which its name testifies, it will 

 generally have been only a provincial capital — and this is worthy of 

 note, because there may be reason to suspect that many of the former 

 rulers in these countries, particularly the Greek- Bactrian princes, had 

 distinct provincial coinages. — Certain coins of Apollodotus, Antila- 

 kides, Ermaios and Eucratides seem to countenance the suspicion. 



It is presumed that coins constantly found and in number on any 

 known spot, afford proofs of their having once been current there, 

 and that the princes whom they commemorate, whether as paramount 

 or tributary sovereigns, held also authority at that spot. The num- 

 bers in which coins may be found, may perhaps furnish a critei'ion 

 upon which we may calculate, first generally, the duration of the 

 dynasties denoted by the various types of coins, and next particularly 

 that of the reign of each individual prince. A collection of one year 

 would not furnish this criterion, a collection of many years might, — a 

 statement is therefore annexed, of the numbers in which the several 

 descriptions of coins found at Beghram have, during three years, 

 been obtained ; — and if it be seen, that they are found annually in 

 due numerical proportion, it may be of service in our speculations, 

 assisted by the coins themselves. Indeed of the recorded kings of 

 Bactria, the coins are found in just the numbers we might expect, 

 and confirm what we know as to the length of their reigns ; and in 

 some other instances of unrecorded princes, their coins and the fre- 

 quency or rarity of their occurrence corroborate the conjectures as to 

 the extent of their reigns, which other accidental discoveries seem 

 to authorize. 



The coins of Beghrdm fortunately admit of ready classification, and 

 may be reduced to five grand classes : 1st, Greek-Bactrian ; 2nd, Indo- 

 Scythic or Mithraic ; 3rd, Ancient Persian, whether Parthian or Sassa- 

 nian ; 4th, Hindu or Brahminical ; 5th, Kufic or Mahommedan — the 

 last class may chronologically be entitled to stand before its prede- 

 cessor the Brahminical one. 



