Copper in Ancient India c8.s5: Method of Copper Coinage
Copper in Ancient India c8.s5
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Method of Copper Coinage
c8.s5.1
Regarding the early methods of coinage adopted in India, the punch-marked coins were evidently small flat ingots marked irregularly by small punches of various patterns applied at different times. Others were struck with a die. Princep writes "the great analogy which is observed between the earliest Indian coins and those of the Macedonian colonists is a very strong argument in favour of the supposition that die-cutting was introduced in India at that period". In later centuries copper coins were evidently prepared by first casting molten copper in suitable moulds in order to make them uniform in shape and then struck between dies. Mr. Henry Cousens while exploring the ruins of the old town of Mansura, the first Arab capital in Sindh when it was conquered by the Mahomedans in the ninth century found a number of copper coins which were evidently struck at Mansura itself together with heaps of honey-combed baked clay slabs. Mr. Cousens writes "these clay
c8.s5.2
1. The names of places marked with an (*) are those in which silver coins were coind along with copper ones and with an (†) are those in which both gold and silver coins were coined in addition to copper.
2. Princep's Eassys on Indian Antiquities, edited by Thomas, Vol. 1, p. 55.
c8.s5.3
slabs or cakes are about half to three-fourths of an inch thick upon one side of which are impressed rows of little cup-like hollows, forming a regular honey comb pattern, while the lower sides have been subjected to great heat and are verified. The honey-combing I have found in three-sizes, the hollows in the largest being about seven-sixteenths of an inch in diameter. These puzzled me when I found them first at Bhambor, a ruined site near one of the mouths of the Indus upon a small heap at one corner; but upon finding near them both at that place and Brahmanabad (afterwards Mansura) not only copper coins but little pellets of copper which fitted them, the real use of these clearly marked tablets became apparent. I also found many fragments with small lumps of verdigris (sub-acetate of copper) adhering to the edges of the little cells. They were no doubt connected with the coining apparatus of the Arabs. I take it that these slabs of clay were first heated upon a furnace to prevent the sudden chilling of the copper poured into them, and when filled and all surplus copper run off, each hollow contained a pellet of uniform size and weight. These were then placed between the dies and struck by a heavy hammer”.¹
c8.s5.4
¹ Henry Cousens, Arch. Surv. Ind., Annual Report, 1903-4, p. 137.