150 Description of some Ancient Gems and Seals, &c, [No. 110. 



led to suppose that this stone may have been engraved in Egypt during 

 the fostering and happy government of the earlier Ptolemies. 



No. 6. A red cornelian, of barbarous execution. Two standing figures 

 male and female, with a cross between them, the male figure holding up 

 a wreath in his left hand. Though this is probably the work of modern 

 days imitated from an antique, yet many seals of equally barbarous work- 

 manship are yearly found in ancient Bactria, all of which most probably 

 belong to the latest period of the Grecian dominion in that country. 



No. 7. A white cornelian of milky hue, very thick and round, having 

 a hole pierced from the top to the bottom. It represents a male figure 

 standing to the front, his face turned to the right, he is clad in the Indian 

 dhuti, and wears the sacred thread across his breast ; flames spring from 

 the top of his head, which is encircled by a halo. In his right hand he 

 holds a trident, and in his left hand, which is placed on his hip, he carries 

 a lota, or drinking vessel ; and a loose robe, or chadr hangs over his left 

 arm. Legend to the left in Bactrian Pali characters T^TiN which 

 is probably some compound of jas (Sanskrit ^HJ^) fame j such as 



Jasvatisa (for^^^'rft) ' of the renowned.' 



This beautiful gem came from Cabool : the execution is good, and the 

 design graceful ; the position of the body is easy and unrestrained ; the 

 limbs are free, and the outline of the figure and the folds of the drapery 

 are naturally and simply expressed. The figure is the same as that we 

 find on the coins of- the Indo-Scythian Kadphises, excepting that the 

 face is turned in a contrary direction. The Indian dhoti, and the sacred 

 poita of the superior castes are so distinct on this gem, that I cannot hesi- 

 tate in ascribing its origin to India, and in assigning it to the period 

 when the Indo-Scythian Kadphises reigned over the Punjab and Cabool. 

 In execution this seal is decidedly equal, if not superior, to the finest gold 

 coins of Kadphises, and I cannot therefore be far wrong in attributing its 

 age to the reign of that Prince, who must have flourished before Kaner- 

 ka; for the money of the latter became the type of several series of the 

 Indian coins down to so late a period as the Mahomedan invasion : while 

 the coins of Kadphises were not imitated except by his immediate succes 

 sors, who may have issued the barbarous gold coins with a man and bull 

 on the reverse, (see Figs. 45, pi. 38, vol. 4, J. A. S. of Bengal.) 



On a few gold specimens, and on all the copper coins of Kadphises, the 

 figure which we see on this gem, is represented standing before a bull, and 

 not alone, as on the commoner gold coins of that Prince ; and this is also 

 the way in which the Deity is placed on the gold and copper coins of the 





