jan. — mar. 1858.] Numismatic Gleanings. 227 



to account for the origin of such a practice has been offered by a 

 writer in the Numismatic Journal. " As the act of impressing a 

 seal or signet," he observes, " was an understood sign of solemn 

 compact, from the most early periods, and as engraved seals and 

 signets were undoubtedly in general use long anterior to the in- 

 vention of coinage, it appears highly probable, that the ori- 

 ginal idea of impressing a stamp on uncoined lumps of gold 

 and silver was derived from the common application of a seal to 

 wax. The earliest coins may be therefore looked upon as pieces 

 of sealed metal ; which in fact they are, it being well known that, 

 at first, coins were impressed only on one side. No device that 

 could be imagined, was so well adapted to the peculiar necessity 

 of the case, or so likely to satisfy the public mind, as the impress, 

 by public authority, of the symbol of the tutelar divinity of their 

 city or of some equally sacred and well known emblem."* 



An explanation so obvious can hardly fail of being accepted,— 

 supported as it is by the very general practice still extant in 

 Eastern countries where the custom of hoarding money prevails, 

 of using private stamp-marks. We possess several specimens both 

 from India and China which are covered with such ciphers, the 

 only difference between them and the pieces represented in the 

 plates being, that the marks in the one case are private in the 

 other public. So general is this habit that it is constantly neces- 

 sary to call in such defaced pieces for recoinage. 



The flat silver pieces represented in Plates VII and VIII are 

 found in all parts of India. Those figured were received from Cud- 

 dapah, Madura, Coimbatore and Nagpore. In the Mackenzie ca- 

 talogue they are recorded as having been obtained in Hindustan, 

 about Patna, at Cawnpore, at Hoogly, also atNellore and generally 

 in the Telugu districts. A large hoard was discovered in Septem- 

 ber 1807, at the opening of one of the ancient tombs known by 

 the name of jpandu-hulis near the village of Chavadi paleiyam in 

 Coimbatore, thus identifying the employment of this kind of money 



* Burgon : Inquiry into the various representations stamped on ancient 

 money, Nu?n d Jour, vol, 1. 



