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38
TRIBES IN ANCIENT INDIA
The method of striking the early coins was peculiar, in that the die was impressed on the metal when hot, so that a deep square incuse, which coins the device, appears on the coin. A similar incuse appears on the later double-die coins of Pañcāla, Kausāmbi, and on some coins of Mathurā. This method of striking may have been introduced from Persia, and was perhaps a derivative from the art of seal-engraving. Brown says that there is little foreign influence traceable in the die-struck coins, all closely connected in point of style, which issued during the first and second centuries B.C. from Pañcāla, Ayodhyā, Kauśāmbi and Mathurā. A number of these bear Brāhmi inscriptions and the names of ten kings, which some would identify with the old Sunga dynasty, have been recovered from the copper and brass coins of Pañcāla, found in abundance at Rāmnagar in Rohilkhand, the site of the ancient city, Ahicchatra.2
1 Brown, Coins of India, p. 19. 2 Ibid., p. 20.
