The Greeks in Bactria and India c13.3

c13.3

It has been widely believed that the monograms on the Greek coins from Bactria and India, or most of them, denoted mint-cities;¹ and even to-day, I understand, it is thought that some of them must be mints, though one numismatist has stated that they may sometimes ‘denote the name of the local magistrate under whose authority the coin was struck’.² Yet Cunningham’s laborious effort to work out the mint-cities from these numerous monograms was a complete failure, and it is admitted that, after many years of study, no single monogram of any mint has been identified, while on the other hand the types of at least two mint-cities, the ‘Zeus enthroned’ of Alexandria-Kapisa and the humped bull of Pushkalāvatī, are perfectly certain.