548 New Varieties of Bactrian Coins. [Sept. 



III. — New Varieties of Bactrian Coins, engraved as Plate XXXV. from 

 Mr. Masson's drawings and other sources. By James Prinsep, Sec. 



Instead of pursuing Mr. Masson's recapitulation of all the coins 

 hitherto found by himself at Beghrdm, we have preferred selecting 

 those only which were new in name or type for illustration ; on the 

 present occasion confining ourselves to those bearing Greek inscrip- 

 tions of the earlier class, and leaving the Mithriac, of which our author 

 produces some highly interesting novelties, for a subsequent plate. 



Fig. 1. A silver coin of Archelius, similar in character to the 

 coins of Menander and Apollodotus*. 



Obverse. Bust of king ; head bound with fillet or diadem, legend 

 BA2IAEr« (8tK«) IOT NlKH*OPOT APXEAIOT. 



Reverse. Jupiter tonans, seated, holding sceptre in left hand. 

 Compound monogram : the legend in the Bactro-pehlevi character is 

 *PA* + ia9 T"1*AH T'hu^'Pimu. The name is faint in the drawing, 

 but is read with confidence by Mr. Masson from the coin itself. It 

 maybe read A'lakiyo (or jo) ; but, if the second and third letters can be 

 made *n, the word will represent very tolerably the pronunciation 

 of the Greek name A'kaliyo. The equivalent for Nicephorou is an 

 old acquaintance, Ajalado ; but the middle letter is altered in form. 

 The remaining epithet V^hu; > which I have supposed to be represented 

 in the Greek by dikaiou, is in fact found standing for this title " the 

 just," in a coin of the Ventura collection figured as No. 9, of Plata 

 XXI. Vol. IV. A more perfect and legible specimen will be notice! 

 below in Mr. Masson's series (fig. 6,) in which the second syllabic let- 

 ter \U, (mi) decides the identity: but the initial is more like i, n ; and the 

 penultimate is 9 instead of ""h ; but as the vowel 9 (a) according to our 

 former observation, never occurs in the middle of a word, it should 

 probably be read *1 frf)'and we should thus have additional evidence 

 of ^h being the same letter affected with some vowel mark. 



Mr. Masson remarks on this coin : '.' This silver drachma is an 

 unique specimen found at Beghrdm in 1835. It is evident that king 

 Archelius must stand high in the list, but there is difficulty in 

 locating his empire : if it be extended to Beghrdm, why do we not 

 meet with his copper coins ?" 



The same epithet, as Mr. Masson points out, may be observed on 

 one of the Azos group of coins having the horseman obverse (fig. 22 



* Col. Stacy writes, while we are correcting this proof, that he has just 

 added another name to this group, BA2lAEn2 NIKATOP02 AMYNT. . .. but 

 of this we are promised casts in a day or two : it is too late for the present plate. 



