A Punjab catalogue trail

The British Museum’s James Prinsep collection listing identifies coin IOLC.7794 with Kanishka I and dates it approximately 127–150. Its geographic fields distinguish production in historical, pre-1947 India from a broad found-or-acquired attribution to historical Punjab. Those are separate catalogue statements. Neither identifies a village, an excavated layer or a mint in modern Punjab. Begin a research note with the museum number and copy the field labels alongside the places. A broad Punjab association is a lead for further investigation, rather than a complete archaeological context.[1]

A Begram comparator

The museum’s copper-alloy coin IOC.298 supplies a useful comparison. It attributes the object to Kanishka I, gives a diameter of 24 millimetres and weight of 17.04 grams, and names Begram as its find-or-acquisition place. Its comments distinguish a citation as an example of a stupa coin type from Masson’s manuscript identification of this particular coin with Begram. The distinction concerns the individual object’s provenance, not merely its design. A matching type should therefore not automatically inherit another coin’s excavation context.[2]

Dating and modern custody

The Fitzwilliam’s record CM.LS.2016-R illustrates other fields worth preserving. It describes a bronze tetradrachm weighing 17.06 grams, with a standing king at an altar on one side and a four-armed Shiva on the other. It gives Northern India as a place of use. Its ruler heading prints Kanishka I with dates 127–47, while its separate dating field gives approximately 100–146. Retain that difference in the catalogue note instead of silently choosing one chronology. Modern custody has its own dates: the history note records Samuel Savage Lewis’s 1891 bequest to Corpus Christi College, and the acquisition field records a 1991 loan. Those events concern the collection’s history, not the coin’s ancient manufacture or a verified Punjab findspot.[3]

Sources & notes

Source records include access dates and, where known, limits on what was examined. Checks used AI assistance; independent human or specialist review has not been completed.

  1. British Museum. James Prinsep: associated collection records, including IOLC.7794 ↗primary institutional museum metadata · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Associated coin IOLC.7794: authority, production date, production and Found/Acquired geographic labels. Accessed 2026-11-01.Primary institutional collection-list metadata. The complete relevant record list was supplied by the search reader; a later direct request returned 403. The individual object detail route did not supply a body and is not claimed inspected. Broad find/acquisition wording is not an excavated site.Return to A Punjab catalogue trail, paragraph 1 ↑
  2. British Museum. Copper-alloy coin IOC.298 ↗primary institutional museum metadata · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Description; date/place/dimensions; curator comments and acquisition note distinguishing a type citation from Masson’s Begram identification. Accessed 2026-11-01.Actual complete relevant object-record body supplied by the search reader, including comments, bibliography and acquisition. The original coin, Masson manuscript, Wilson 1841 and cited modern catalogues were not independently examined. The field-collector attribution is qualified in the source and no confident collector claim is added.Return to A Begram comparator, paragraph 1 ↑
  3. Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. Tetradrachm: CM.LS.2016-R, primary reference 175932 ↗primary institutional museum metadata · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Maker/ruler heading; place of use; Dating; Components; inscription-design descriptions; history and acquisition fields; audit updated 18 December 2024. Accessed 2026-11-01.Actual full relevant institutional record body supplied by the search reader; later direct reader request returned cache miss. The original coin, photographs and 1999 bibliographic paper were not examined. The ruler-heading/date-field disagreement is retained without a new chronology. The record’s image-height/width fields are not relabelled a measured coin diameter.Return to Dating and modern custody, paragraph 1 ↑
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Record PH-COL-0054 · English edition · human review not performed