JOURNAL 



ASIATIC SOCIETY 



Note of Discoveries of Gems from Kandahar. — By Lieutenant 



CONOLLY. 



My dear Sir, Kandahar, October 24, 1839. 



In default of something more interesting, you will perhaps 

 not think the enclosed facsimiles of gems unworthy of place 

 in your Journal. They are sent rather, it must be confessed, 

 with the desire of gaining information, than a hope of being 

 able to impart it. The number of the Journal which contains 

 the Pehlevi Alphabet not being procurable here, we are unable 

 to read the inscriptions. Our harvest of antiquities has as 

 yet been most unpromising. This is partly owing to the 

 disturbed state of the country, but also in a great measure 

 to our researches having been confined to the southern pro- 

 vinces of Afghanistan, to which the Greek rule and civiliza- 

 tion would seem only very partially to have extended. From 

 Shikarpore to Herat or Seistan there is hardly one stone 

 edifice, and not one of antiquity. Pure Bactrian coins are very 

 rare, and the only description found in any quantity, are coins 

 having some connection with the Azos series ; the most com- 

 mon being copper coins, with a head and illegible inscription 

 on the obverse, with the Unadpherros reverse. Seistan, which 

 we hoped would prove an Eldorado, furnishes, or has as yet 

 furnished, nothing but these, together with numerous Sassanian 

 and Arsakian coins. Of the Sassanian, the most common is a 

 species not noticed in the Journal, but probably to be recog- 

 nized in some of your numismatological works. Obverse, two 

 heads, one with the usual Sassanian high cap and long beard, 

 the other facing it smaller, 



No. 98. New Series, No. 14. O 



