Copper in Ancient India c8.s5.1

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