Catalogue of Coins in the Punjab Museum, Lahore (Set of 3 Volumes)

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The Catalogue of Coins in the Panjab Museum, Lahore, Volume I: Indo-Greek Coins by R.B. Whitehead is a seminal work on the numismatic history of the Indo-Greek period. Published in 1914, it is a meticulously detailed catalog documenting the collection of Indo-Greek coins housed in the Panjab Museum, Lahore.

The book provides comprehensive descriptions of coin types, inscriptions, symbols, and portraits, along with historical context for each ruler represented in the collection. Whitehead's scholarship includes a systematic arrangement of coins by dynasty and ruler, making it an essential reference for historians, archaeologists, and numismatists studying the Hellenistic influence on the Indian subcontinent.

It reflects the rich cultural and artistic exchange between Greek and Indian traditions during the Indo-Greek era, offering insights into political history, iconography, and economic systems of the time.

R.B. Whitehead (1879-1967) (Reginald Buckingham Whitehead) was a British numismatist and historian renowned for his expertise in Indian coinage. Whitehead was a member of the Indian Civil Service and developed a keen interest in numismatics during his tenure in colonial India. His meticulous research and detailed cataloging helped preserve and document the rich numismatic heritage of the region, particularly focusing on the Mughal Empire's monetary system. His contributions remain a cornerstone for historians, collectors, and researchers studying South Asian numismatics.

THIS volume describes the Collection of Indo-Greek coins in the Lahore Museum, Panjab, India. I have applied the term Indo-Greek to the issues of the Greek Kings of Bactria and India, and of their contemporaries and immediate successors in North-West India, who struck money bearing legible Greek inscriptions. Those were the Indo-Scythic and Indo-Parthian dynasties, and the Great Kushans, down to and including Vasu Deva. ¹

The coins in the Lahore Museum were contained in two separate Collections. One was the Government Collection proper, and the other was the Cabinet of Mr. C. J. Rodgers, a well-known figure in Indian numismatics, a Collection which was purchased by the Panjab Government. Mr. Rodgers prepared Catalogues under official auspices, both of the Government Collection and of his own Cabinet; and these were printed at the Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta, in the years 1892 to 1894. Neither work was illustrated, a fact which has detracted much from their value.

In the Preface to one of the Parts of his Catalogue, Mr. Rodgers mentions the fact that at the beginning of his career as a coin collector, he specialised in the issues of the Indo-Greeks. But he found that they were so difficult to obtain, and that such a large outlay was necessary for their acquisition, that he turned his attention to Mughal coins, and left the ancient coins to his friend General (afterwards Sir Alexander) Cunningham. Nevertheless, the Indo-Greek section of his Cabinet was not to be despised, and it was very strong in the copper series. 'The Government Collection contained some good Greek coins, and there were a few very fine specimens in a small but valuable supplementary Collection, which is described in the Government Collection Catalogue, and was apparently purchased an bloc, probably from Mr. C. J. Rodgers himself, by means of a special grant. Then there were also the coins purchased from time to time during the nineteen years which have elapsed since the production of Mr. Rodgers' Catalogue.

The Indo-Greek coins of the Bleazby Collection were purchased for the Lahore Museum in the year 1911. They cost £800, and this expenditure was met in equal shares by the Government of India, and by the Panjab Government. The splendid Collection of which they formed part, was made by Mr. G. B. Blenzby, late of the Financial Department of the Government of India, during a long career spent in North-West India.

It was felt that the time had arrived for the incorporation of all these coins into one combined Collection, and for the production of a new Greek Catalogue. I was asked to carry out this work. A new Catalogue of the combined Mughal coins in the Lahore Museum has been prepared simultaneously with this volume.

For convenience of treatment, I have divided this work into three parts, to each of which I have written a brief Intro-duction. The first treats of the coins of the Greek Kings of Bactria and India. The second describes the issues of the Indo-Scythians and of the Indo-Parthians, and the third the coins of the Kushans. The distinction between Indo-Scythians and Indo-Parthians is at present largely conventional. In Volume I of the recently-produced Indian Museum Catalogue, Mr. Vincent Smith calls both dynasties Indo-Parthian.

THE romance of the discovery of Greek coins in India is well told by Professor H. H. Wilson in Ariana Antiqua (London, 1841). Coins of Apollodotos and Menander were published for the first time by Colonel Tod in the first volume of the transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1824. The coins described and figured became the subject of an interesting and learned dissertation by Augustus Wilhelm von Schlegel, which appeared in the Journal Asia Tique, November, 1828. Of the medals of Apollodotos and Menander, Schlegel observes, ces deux Medaille’s sont, pour ainsi dire, hors de prix tant pour la conservation parfaite que pour leur extreme rarete et leur importance historique.' Their historical importance remains undiminished, but their attribute of rarity was soon to be changed through the discoveries of the American explorer Masson in Afghanistan. Mr. Masson resided for some time in that country, and during the years 1833 to 1837 he succeeded in accumulating some thirty thousand coins from the Kabul Valley and its vicinity. The far greater proportion of these must have been too much injured by corrosion to have had any other than metallic value, but several new names of Greek prince’s unknown to history wero found, such as Archebios, Lysias, and Hermaios, and numerous pieces of what are now called the Indo-Scythians, Indo-Parthians, and Kushans. Meanwhile collateral progress in the decipherment of the legends was being made in India by James Prinsep, and in Europe by such savants as M. Raoul Rochette and Lassen. The results of Prinsep's labours are embodied in his Essays on Indian Antiquities, a scholarly work of the first rank, but now out of date. Another early worker in this field was Cunningham, who as Lieutenant A. Cunningham wrote on these coins in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for 1834, and as General Sir Alexander Cunningham crowned his long and devoted labours on the Indo-Greek series of coins by producing the fully informed and striking essays which appeared in the Numismatic Chronicle during the years 1868 to 1892, under the titles of 'The Coins of Alexander's Successors in the East, Greeks, Indo-Scythians, and Parthians', 'The Coins of the Sakas', 'The Coins of the Kushans', and so on. The objection has been raised that these papers, although of great value, requiro to be read with caution.