1890.] punch-marhed coins of Hindustan, ^c. 265 
311. A drinking cup. This object is of somewhat uncertain 
import. It is essentially part of symbol Nos. 42 and 174, though the 
association was not at first perceived. It always occupies, however, the 
same position over the goat’s back and may be regarded as either a 
drinking cup or an altar. It is a slightly tapering cone, expanded 
above, if we regard it as an altar ; or below, if we regard it as a cup ; 
the truncate end representing either the base of the altar, with expand- 
ed tip, or the lip of a drinking vessel, with an expanded base. Good 
specimens always show it over the goat’s back, and in some cases the 
symbols seems to be spotted or studded with ornamental dots, which 
rather favour the idea of its representing a cup. 
312. Symbol No. 146 only the ‘ Taurines ’ face in opposite direc- 
tions. 
I would here make a few remarks on those symbols on the coins, 
which we can recognise without hesitation on the gold ornaments found 
in the tombs of Agamemnon and his companions (as so regarded) in 
Mycenae ; and one hardly knows which most to admire, the material 
wealth and groat artistic talent in design indicated by the contents of 
these tombs, or the acumen and perseverance which enabled Schliemann 
to bring to light after forty centuries or more, the personal relics and 
possessions down to their very arms and ornaments, of the actors in the 
immortal Epos of ‘ windy ’ Troy. 
To commence with the ‘ Triskelis.’ An extremely elegant and 
graceful form of this symbol occurs on a gold ‘button’ (Mycense No. 
383), where it fills the acute, or upper and lower angles of the central 
lozenge, and is mentioned without being named (Schliemann for some 
reason or other nowhere using the term ‘ Triskelis ’ either in his ‘ Troy ’ 
or ‘ Mycen® ’) in the description of this button at page 262, and this 
is the sole instance among the figures of this extremely beautiful form 
of the symbol. On another button, however, (1. c. No. 382) a ‘ Triskelis ’ 
(recognised as such by Schliemann I. c. page 261) occupies the same 
position as the last, in the acute angles of the central lozenge, but is of 
an altogether stouter design, and composed of three cii’cinate arms (or 
legs) of the peculiar art-type adopted by the Mycenro workmen. A 
third variety of ‘ Triskelis ’ occurs on two buttons (1. c. Nos. 409 and 
413) which I consider made up, of three highly differentiated ‘ omegas ’ 
(to use Schliemann’s terra for the symbol identified by me with the 
more familiar ‘ lingam-yord ’) witli one arm or ‘ labium ’ much elongated 
beyond the other (artis catisd) and recurved so as to impart a circinate 
or pot-hook form to the ‘ omega ’ symbol. Other specimens and variants 
of the ‘ Triskelis ’ occur on buttons. Nos. 377, 428, 510, 511 (1. c.) and 
one specimen of a reversed ‘ Triskelis,’ revolving from right to left. No. 
601 (1. c.). 
