1838.] Coins and relics from Bactria. 1049 



he designed giving in our last October number. The plate remains, 

 and we attach it to this article, that the curious who have followed 

 our Editor to the length of his past researches may see the objects 

 which he deemed worthy of fresh illustration in the field of Indo-Bac- 

 trian numismatology. If the Herefordshire, the ship in which he took 

 passage, had touched at Madras, or had put into Mauritius, or had met 

 a vessel at sea, we might have hoped for the comments promised on 

 this, as on other two plates which we also intend to give and shall 

 separately refer to. But the time approaches when the issue of the 

 last number of our series will be expected, and we can no longer defer 

 the publication, under the doubtful expectation of receiving the expected 

 paper from the Cape of Good Hops. Of the coins and gems there- 

 fore in Sir Alexander Burnes's collection we can at present make 

 no use, but we hold them in deposit for the examination of others and 

 to wait his further instructions. We must be content at present to give 

 the plate referred to, which it will be seen is numbered XXXII. together 

 with such brief reading of the names, as a Tyro of Indian numismatics 

 might be expected with the aid of the alphabets to supply. The plate 

 is of Indo-Bactrian coins of date antecedent to the introduction of Gre- 

 cian art, with the Grecian alphabet, into the mints of that country. 

 The legends are in the ancient No. 1. character of the then universal 

 Pali language, with Bactrian characters in some instances on the 

 obverse or intermixed. The names and emblems on these coins are 

 well worth the study of the learned. 



Along with Sir A. Burnes's coins Dr. McLeod brought to Calcutta 

 a very singular relic obtained by Dr. Lord at Badakhshdn, and which 

 is we believe destined for the British museum. The relic in question is 

 an ancient patera of silver, embossed in the interior in very high relief, 

 and representing, with all the usual adjuncts of classic mythology, the 

 procession of Bacchus. The god himself sits in a car drawn by two 

 harnessed females with a drinking cup in his hand. A fat infant Sile- 

 nus stands in front, and there is a female figure kneeling on the after 

 corner of the car, which from its disproportionate size we imagine to 

 be the carved elbow of the seat on which the god reclines. There are 

 also two winged cupids in attendance, one flying with a wand in his 

 hand to which a fellet is attached, the other end of which is held by the 

 infant Silenus ; and the other on the foreground behind the wheel 

 of the car, as if employed in pushing it on. The car is followed by a 

 dancing Hercules distinguishable by the club and lion skin. The heads 

 of this figure and of the Bacchus are both wanting, owing probably 

 to their having been of gold or thought so, while the rest of the patera 



