1894.] W. Theobald— Early Local Silver Coinages in N.-W. India. 73 
Notes on early local silver coinages in North-Western India and in the 
Konkan.—By W. Theobald, Member of the Num. Soc. Lon., and 
Royal As. Soc. 
[ Read December, 1893. ] 
Among' the few articles recovered from the wreck of the steamer 
wherein the Archaeological treasures, books, and manuscripts of Gen. Sir 
Alexander Cunningham were lost beneath the waters of the Bay of Ben¬ 
gal, were some bags of coins, which the owner obligingly presented to me, 
in the hope that some of the coins might be so cleaned from the crust 
which had overspread them during their submergence in the sea, as still 
to be of value: and this proved to be the case with many specimens, 
though a large number were too corroded by the water to be worth 
keeping. The majority of the coins, which amounted to several pounds 
in weight, were of copper, or that mixture of silver and copper issued 
by the Dehll mint, but among them were a few silver coins, which I 
propose to describe in the present paper. These silver coins numbered 
eighteen in all, of which number sixteen may be referred to a type 
of great antiquity and intermediate in character between the well- 
known ‘ punch-marked ’ coins and those of later date impressed by a 
single ‘die. ’ The coins are impressed from a single die, and thereby 
connected with modern coinage ; but from the simplicity of design, the 
character of some of the symbols on them, and above all, by their 
weight, they are evidently closely related to punch-marked coins, and 
form as it were a local coinage, sui generis , which, as far as is at present 
known, was confined to the North-West of India, or to speak more 
particularly, to the neighbourhood of Mathura, Collectively speaking, 
these sixteen coins may be referred to one class, but thirteen of them 
have the reverse, either blank, or with two or three small ‘ punch * 
marks impressed thereon, whilst three of them have the reverse also 
rudely and imperfectly impressed by a ‘ die.’ Of the above thirteen coins, 
eleven are stamped on the obverse with a peculiar collection of symbols, 
with such slight variation as resulted from the employment of different 
dies, not identical in minor particulars ; whilst two present an entirely 
