The Coinage and Metrology of The Sultans of Dehli- Incorporating A Catalogue of The Coins in the Author’s Cabinet Now in The Dehli Museum

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Book Description

About the Book Planned and designed as a catalogue of coins in the Delhi Museum, H. Nelson Wright’s The Coinage and Metrology of the Sultans of Delhi is a corpus of coins of the Sultans of Delhi. It catalogues the full details of 1483 coins in the author’s collection besides 500 other types and varieties, a number of which are the unpublished coins in private collections. It is thus a most comprehensive catalogue or corpus of coins of the Delhi Sultans and includes the coins of forty-one rulers of Delhi beginning with Muhammad I Bin Sam to Sikandar III, the last ruler of the Sur dynasty.

The book has been divided on the basis of various dynasties which ruled in succession from Delhi and at the end of each dynasty, have been added copious notes discussing in detail the coinage and the salient features of the coins of each dynasty or issued by each ruler. Particularly useful are the eight Appendices at the end of the book which deal respectively with the Metrology of the early Sultans of Delhi, assay made by Dr. S.W. Smith and Dr. H.J. Plenderleith on the coins, a table of ornaments or mint-marks, phrases and titles found on the coins, a list of the Abbasid Khalifas in Egypt, comparative table of the years of the Hijra and of the Christian era, grains and grammes-table of equivalents and geographical index besides twenty-four plates containing the reproduction of the coins and a map of India showing the mints.

About the Author H. Nelson Wright (British; Male; 1941; died) Worked in the Indian Civil Service. Collector of Islamic coins (subsequently acquired by the British Museum and the Delhi Museum), and of Gupta coins (subsequently acquired by the British Museum). Fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society from 1903. Awarded the Royal Numismatic Society medal in 1932; also awarded a special gold medal from the Indian Numismatic Society. His publications include: ‘Catalogue of coins in the India Museum, Calcutta’.

Preface THE nucleus of this Catalogue is a collection formed by the author in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh between the years 1894 and 1924. It seemed fitting that the coins should find a permanent home in Dehli, of whose Sultans they are a numismatic record. An offer was accordingly made and accepted. The gold and silver coins (53 M-223 A were acquired by the Director-General of Archaeology in India for the Dehli Museum. The billon and copper coins (over 1,200) were presented on the understanding that the collection should be preserved intact, and a printed catalogue of it published on the lines of the coin catalogues issued by the principal museums in India. This I undertook to prepare.

It subsequently seemed desirable to take the opportunity to extend the scope of the Catalogue and make it a corpus’ of the coins of the Sultans of Dehli. Sixty-five years have elapsed since the publication in 1871 of The Chronicles of the Pathan Icings of Dehli by that distinguished scholar and pioneer of Indian numismatics Edward Thomas of the Bengal Civil Service. Though Thomas had, in 1847, written a small volume On the Coins of the Patan Sultans of Hindustan, followed by a supplementary contribution in 1852, the publication of The Chronicles has always been regarded as the starting-point for the study of the coins of the Sultans of Dehli. It describes some 320 coins of those Sultans.’ The British Museum in 1884 possessed 642 coins of that series.2 The Catalogue of the Indian Museum cum Asiatic Society of Bengal Collection, published in 1907, recorded 899 coins, and in 1925 the Lucknow Provincial Museum issued a catalogue describing 1,045 coins of the Sultans.

Book’s Contents and Sample Pages