Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;EWC3, post: 3252681, member: 93416&quot;]Yes – has anyone put the whole thing to the web I wonder?</p><p><br /></p><p>Two things to say about the author, Pheru. He ran what was very probably the biggest mint in pre-modern India, and thus one of the biggest pre-modern mints that ever existed, outside China. In all probability he oversaw the production of billions of coins, and they are all excellent in metal, in strike, in weight etc.</p><p><br /></p><p>Secondly, we can identify some of the mostly obsolete coins he wrote about in Dravya Pariksha – the jitals of Delhi itself over the 13th century. And samples of those coins were re-analysed destructively by the Royal Mint back in the 1930’s. Pheru had got them all correct first time round.</p><p><br /></p><p>So we know he was highly competent and that his book is a mine of valuable information. But we do not know how to decode it – the names of most of the coins are in obscure 13th century vernacular forms</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I seem to have heard a lot about big institutions running metal analyses over the years – but less about interesting conclusions being reached. I am surely showing my bias – but that 1930&#039;s project at the Royal Mint was personally directed by a collector - Nelson-Wright – it was carefully targeted to get a specific and very useful result. On the other hand, the recent work seems disconnected, as if the projects were designed by professional academic grant committees, or some such. Its not clear to me that specific target hypotheses are being tested, and if they are, I do not seem to hear interesting conclusions coming out of them. Can anyone point out where I am wrong about this fear?</p><p><br /></p><p>Rob T[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in