DESCRIPTION OF SELECT COINS. 599 



Coins belonged either to the old Kaianian dynasty of Persia, or to the 

 Sassanian kings. The remarkable symbol, the high but conical cap, not 

 to speak of the more decidedly Hindu emblems, are not visible in the 

 Plates of Le Bruyn, Chardin, Niebuhr, nor in the more recent deli- 

 neations of Morier, Ouseley, andPoRTER. If the object which has been 

 supposed to represent a fire altar, be what it is supposed, it differs widely 

 from the altars on both the Arsacidan and Sassanian Coins. If however 

 it be held in the hand it can scarcely be an altar, and that such is the case, 

 is rendered probable by the sole exception I have met with to the asser- 

 tion that I have not found any thing analogous to the details of our Coins, 

 as on Plate 156 of Le Bruyn, he gives a sculptured fragment found at 

 Pcrsepolis, a hand grasping a very similar article to that on several of 

 our plates. He offers no conjecture as to what it is meant to represent, 

 though from a figure of the same, on a smaller scale, in Kerr Porter, 

 Plates 47 and 49, it appears to have been a kind of vase or bucket. 



The third series, that with the archer on one face, and the sitting 

 figure on the other, is apparently Hindu, but that it has some connexion 

 with the preceding is evinced by the presence of the common symbol, and 

 in some of the specimens by the workmanship, which is of a superior 

 description, and may be indebted to Greek art for its superiority. 



Passing over single specimens of uncertain character, we may perhaps 

 consider No. 28 of Plate 1 and 43, &c. of Plate 11, as constituting a fourth 

 series of rude, and probably purely Hindu fabric. It is worthy of notice 

 however, that a representative of this class, as well as of two of the preced- 

 ing, was found in the Tope Maniktjala, and so far we may refer all the 

 four orders to a prior or cotemporaneous date with that monument, and 

 possibly, therefore, to the ages immediately preceding and following 

 the yera of Christianity. 



