Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c22.s5: Metal Coins at Taxila
Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c22.s5
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Metal Coins at Taxila
v1.c22.s5.1
John Allan examined the punch-marked, local Taxilian and Greek coins collected by Marshall (chapter 41, p. 853).
v1.c22.s5.2
The earliest coins found on the site are the silver bars bearing a wheel-like symbol. One specimen was found in Sirkap and forty-one in the Bhir Mound, including thirty-three in the great hoard of silver from that site. These pieces probably belong to the fourth century BC.
v1.c22.s5.3
The Bhir Mound hoard pot contained 1,167 silver coins and several pieces of jewellery. The silver coins were a Persian siglos, tetradrachms of Alexander the Great and of Philip III Aridaeus, thirty-three silver bars mentioned in the previous paragraph, seventy-nine tiny pieces weighing 2-3 gms, and several punch-marked silver pieces.
v1.c22.s5.4
The Mauryan period is represented by punch-marked silver coins, many of them really copper, plated with silver. In one of the hoards was found a stray gold coin of Diodotus II (~ 235 BC) and some Mauryan jewellery.
v1.c22.s5.5
Local copper coinage of Taxila started during the end of the Mauryan era, and covered the period of autonomy between the decline of the Maurya empire and the Greek occupation. The majority of the coins were marked with the Taxilian symbols such as *caitya* (commonest), *swastika*, hollow cross, plant, animals like lion or elephant, and later, presumably under Greek influence, the horse. Attempts were made to impart glamour to copper coins by not only silver-plating but also alloying the metal with nickel. White copper coin of Euthydemus II (180 BC) contained 20 per cent nickel, 1 iron, 0.6 cobalt and rest copper.
v1.c22.s5.6
Whereas the metallic artefacts were found scattered in different places, the coins were found in special hoards, buried prior to anticipated events of disaster.
v1.c22.s5.7
The date of burial of the Bhir Mound hoard was probably not long before the destruction of the city about 170 BC. The hoard coins reflect the ebbs and tides of the political history in the region as well as the availability of the metals during the different epochs. The Mauryas functioned in a silver-base economy. Facing shortage of silver, they substituted it by copper. Euthydemus II, the Bactrian king could draw upon the source of nickel from Central Asia to produce ‘white copper’ coins. The Kuṣāṇas could supplement their requirement of gold by imports from the Near East by way of the Persian Gulf. An ingot of gold, found in the Śaka-Pārthian city of Sirkap, strongly resembled the ingots which were traded in the Roman World.