100 



Note on Kandahar Gems. 



It is extremely mortifying to be obliged to submit these very singular 

 relics to the readers of the Journal without any thing beyond a conjectu- 

 ral comment upon them. The gems themselves must be, many of them 7 

 extremely well executed, arguing the existence of a high state of civilizati- 

 on among the people, with whom they were in use. The drawings, taken from 

 the impressions in sealing wax with which Lieut. Conolly has furnished me 

 give, I should say, with one or two trifling exceptions, a very faithful, and 

 accurate idea of the gems they are intended to represent. The figure of the 

 Victory (No 4) might well compete in grace and spirit with the ordinary 

 similar figures found on the ancient gems of Italy, or Greece. As the 

 comparison by juxtaposition of one of such gems with the Victory 

 might be thought interesting, I have inserted immediately below it 

 a Jupiter (A) found at Civita Vecchia.* It is an agate, and the draw- 

 ing has been taken from an impression in sealing wax, in order to put 

 the European on exact par with the Asiatic antique. The result of the 

 comparison is not, I think, to the disadvantage of the latter; and as the 

 Jupiter has been, its possessor informs me, looked upon by competent 

 judges in such gems as a good specimen, we may in a sort of vague 

 manner assign a period to our Victory as having been produced under 

 the purely Grecian dynasty of Bactria, when the arts of their fatherland 

 were still cherished in something of their original beauty by the soldier- 

 monarchs, whose arms constituted their right of empire. 



The figures (as Nos. 2 and 6) belong evidently to a very different 

 era, were even the execution alone the test by which to judge of them. 

 The gem No. 10, again, is of a higher order of art, although bearing 

 a barbarian legend : the head on one of the sides is cleverly cut, the 

 hand on another well proportioned, and the characters of the inscrip- 

 tion executed with much neatness. All speculation however on the 

 style of workmanship as a test of the date of production of such gems 

 is, for the present, idle. I have merely touched upon it, as believing 

 that it may hereafter become a useful agent of verification, or even of 

 discovery, when time, patience, and a larger experience in the varieties 

 of these relics shall have given a clue to the assignment, or an approxima- 

 tion of the assignment, of their periods. That we may hope for this on 

 sound grounds, I shall explain further on. 



The monogram on No. 1, I had at one time thought to have proved 

 to be, as Lieut. Conolly suggests, Boodhist ; it is still under examination. 



* Note.— It is the property of Lieut. George Reid, 1st Cavalry, to whose kindness the Society is 

 indebted for the drawings of the gems published in this number, and without whose aid I could 

 not have submitted a copy at length of the characters on them. 



