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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[AUGUST, 1877.
The hoard in Tinnivelli was discovered in December 1872; its probable value is estimated at a lakh of rupees. The labourers divided the spoil, but the Tahsildêr succeeded in recover ing Rs. 8,000 worth of coin and ingots; the rest was quickly melted down, and all traces of it lost. Of the coins 31 were obtained for Go- vernment, and are now in the Madras Museum. The inscriptions on the whole of the coins are in Arabic or Kufic, with one exception,-a coin of Peter of Aragon, (not Johanna of Castile), the legend on which is in Latin in old Gothic characters, and reads thus:
"Summa potestas est in Deo. P. Dei gra. Aragon, sigil. re." surrounding
& shield. "Ps. Cost. Dei gra. Aragon. sigil. reg:."
In the field an eagle. The P. referred to is Pedro III., king of Aragon, who began to reign A.D. 1276.
He concluded a treaty with a Sultan of the Mamluk Bahrite dynasty, and hence probably
the coin found its way to Egypt, and so to India. A
The coins bearing Arabic characters belong to four dynasties,--the Khalifs, Atabegs, Ayub. ite, and Mamlak Bahrite. The coins in Kafic characters have not been deciphered.
The greatest gold-find recorded in Madras happened in 1851, when & vast treasure was discovered on a hill near Kottayam, ten miles east of Kannanur: the native discoverers for a long time maintained the strictest secrecy; the purity of the gold attracted the jewellers and wealthy men, and nearly all were melted down for ornaments. No less than five cooly-loads of gold coins are said to have been taken from this spot. Eighty or ninety coins came into the possession of the Raja of Travancore, and a larger number was obtained by General Cullen, the Resident. Not one reached the Madras Museum. The coins were of the following reigns:-Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Caligula, Drusas.*
MATHURÂ INSCRIPTIONS.
BY F. S. GROWSE, M.A., B.C.S. The Pâli inscriptions, of which rubbings and, in with a stone vault. In this (80 far as contranscripts are herewith sent, have been collect- structional peculiarities are concerned) I have ed within the last few years from different reproduced the roof of the now ruined temple of spots in and about the city of Mathura. The Harideva at Govardhan, an interesting specistones upon which they are engraved are as yet men of the eclectic style that prevailed in the in my own possession, but will eventually be reign of the emperor Akbar, and which so recenttransferred to a local museum, which is now inly as 1872 was in almost perfect preservation. course of erection. The building was commenced The cost of these additions was Rs. 5,366. A more than twenty years ago by Mr. Mark portico is now being added at an estimated outThornhill, the then Collector of the district, who lay of Rs. 8,494 ; and when the openings that intended it as a rest-house for natives of rank were broken through the walls by Mr. Tbornon their occasional visits to the station. After hill's whimsical successor, with the express object some Rs. 50,000, raised by local subscription, of disfiguring his predecessor's design, have been had been expended, the work was interrupted by closed in with tracery, the whole will present a the Mutiny, and never resumed till 1874, when most beautiful and elaborate specimen of the Sir John Strachey, the most liberal supporter architecture of Mathura in the nineteenth cenof art and science that the North-West has ever tary.t had at its head, warmly encouraged the idea of Though the cost of the building has been 80 its conversion into a museum, and subsequently considerable, it is only of small dimensions, the sanctioned a grant-in-aid of Rs. 3,500 from pro- whole surface of the stone being covered with vincial funds. The central court was last year geometric and flowered patterns of the most raised by the addition of an attic, and covered artistic character. It is therefore intended to
• From Catalogue of Coins in the Government Museum, Madras.
+ I have been able to carry out so many architectural works since I have been at Mathura that probably in after years native tradition will associate with my name every
thing that was built about this period. I wish, therefore, to place on record that I am not responsible for the design of the portico. It is in itself very beautiful work, but it is quite out of place in the open air, on the side of a dusty road.
