676 Continuation of notes on Hindu Coins. [Dec. 



figure is filled up, there does not seem to be much reason for imagin- 

 ing any intention of mystifying the device, otherwise than by the 

 clouds of ignorance ; when the engraver retained only sufficient 

 knowledge of his craft to cut the outline of his device in relief, and 

 latterly even seems himself to have lost sight of its meaning altogether, 

 as in figs. 48, cum multis aliis ; — certain it is, that the title of hiero- 

 glyphic has been earned and won for this coin even from the anti- 

 quarians of the west ; witness the following highly curious passage, 

 brought to my notice by Dr. Swinry, in an American work on scrip- 

 ture geography*, applied to a wood cut of a coin in all respects the 

 counterpart of our figure 3, which may have found its way to Egypt, in 

 the course of commercial dealings, eight or ten centuries ago : — 



" This is an extremely curious medal, of silver, struck in Egypt before the 

 reigns of the Ptolemies. It represents on one side, a man on horse-back, and 

 on the other, an ox of the humped kind lying down : between his horns is the 

 lunar crescent, and within that is a globe. These symbols clearly refer this ox to 

 Egypt. The man on horse-back is the most singular part of this medal ; none 

 of the countries adjacent having adopted the type of a horseman. There is every 

 reason to believe that the letters on this medal are Persian, and that the person 

 represented is Aryandes, governor of Egypt under Darius, the last king of 

 Persia, who then possessed this country, and who caused the governor to be put 

 to death for coining money in his own name" ! I 



It can hardly be believed, that the nature of the characters should 

 have been unknown to any but Transatlantic antiquaries, for they are 

 in a very obvious form of Deva nagari, and may be easily read where 

 the letters are not cut off or otherwise obliterated. 



At the commencement of the foregoing essay, I alluded to this series 

 as one of the four palpable imitations of a Grecian or Indo-Scythic 

 model : — 1 had in my eye the coins of Azos and Azu.isos in particu- 

 lar^ which have a horseman with spear for the obverse, and a humped 

 bull for the reverse. On being Indianized.the bull has become the nandi 

 of Hindu mythology, with its ornamental ^'Am7 or saddle cloth, and the 

 trident or tirsul of Siva impressed on its haunch. The horse has in 

 like manner, received the trappiugs peculiar to the country, the zer- 

 band and dtimcki. The rider has still some traces of a flowing fillet 

 from his cap (see fig. 5,) but his dress is not otherwise open to critic- 

 ism. I would not pretend to insist upon the direct filiation of the 

 Hindu coin to what I have assumed as its prototype : but the adop- 

 tion of the same elements for the device, it may be surely contended, 

 argues some connection or descent : — it is like the preservation of 

 armorial insignia in a family ; and on these grounds, we have pre- 



* Smiley's Scripture Geography, Philadelphia, 1835, page 151. 

 f See Plates XXII. XXIII. ef the June No., figs. 9, and 28. 



