April 2010

Next club meeting Monday 10^th May 2009.

• Pub Games and Tokens By Bryce Neilson

Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.

Skittles Evening

On 24th April, the club had its annual Skittles evening at the Red Lion in Theale. The usual three games were played (most points in nine balls; knock at least one down with three lives; and knock only one down with three lives). The first game was played boys versus girls, with a win for the boys with 181 to 164. The highest scoring girl was Stacey (21 points), and we had a four-way tie on 20 points for the boys between Mick, John, Peter and Charlie. A one-ball play-off was won by John. The second game saw John reverse his fortunes, being first out, swiftly followed by James and Joanna … clearly something to do with the initials! John’s wife Kay, on the other hand, remained the last player with 3 lives, and went on to finish second behind Britannie. The third game saw James go from 2nd to last to fully last, in a game that was won by Paul.

An enjoyable evening (and very good food!) was had by the 20 members and friends that attended. Congratulations to all the winners!

April meeting.

At the meeting in April Mr S Bhandare gave a talk entitled ‘An Introduction to Indo-Greek coinage’.

In summary the talk covered the influence of the Greeks on the local Indian coinage in the first and second century BC, and the merging of the differing cultural elements. Prior to the late 3rd century BC the coinages of North West India, Pakistan and Afghanistan consisted mainly of various shaped planchets carrying several differing marks and struck with multiple dies on one side only.

Alexander the Great reached India in 326 BC and defeated a local ruler, Porus, at the battle of Hylaspas. Alexander did not stay long in India, but four of his generals established kingdoms, eg Bactria. One of the more renowned generals was Demetros known as the conqueror of India. Mr Bhandare illustrated several examples of his coins which were clearly in the Greek style, namely a typical effigy of the man and a deity on the reverse. As time progressed so the local influence began to reappear with the reverse inscription being partially in Indian script.

At this point in the talk Mr Bhandare spoke about the principle characteristics of the coins from the 2nd century BC, viz:

• -Largely bimetallic, mostly silver and copper since gold is rare
• -Denominations are Stators, Drachms and Tetra-drachms.
• -Two differing fineness standards, local and Attic
• -The use of monograms
• -Effigies mostly Portraiture and Deities
• -Dynastic links to previous family rulers (very useful to work out the order of rulers)
• -The use of dual languages (with one being Greek the coins provide scholars with a sort of Rosetta stone to assist in understanding the ancient local scripts).

Mr Bhandare then showed several fine examples to illustrate the points above. Initially the Greek style predominates with many classical Greek gods (Athena, Zeus, and Hercules) and classical Greek deities/ devices such as the shield of Athena. However, by the 1st century BC the deities start to take on a distinctive Indian persona. A little later some coins can clearly be interpreted in two ways. Mr Bhandare showed a decidedly Indian style coin apparently depicting Zeus on an elephant (hardly the normal Greek animal), but the Indian audience would see this as the god Indira on an elephant

By the late 1st century while the Greek origins are evident the Indian style is much more prominent. The deities are cruder and look Indian, much of the script is Indian and several Indian monograms are evident. With the rise of the Parthians the coinage becomes even cruder and almost totally Indian. But the Greeks did leave one legacy, namely the Greek standards of fineness which was still being adhered to until the 6th century AD.

Overall an excellent talk well illustrated talk that was delivered with good clarity for such a complex subject. The 24 members who attended the talk extended their thanks to Shailendra in the usual way, and a short Q&A session followed.

Committee Members

Once again we are approaching the end of the Year and are short of any volunteers to serve on the committee. Gavin has to stand down by the rules of the Constitution leaving us one short. Please give some serious thought to the possibility of giving something back to the club by joining the committee.

Future Events.

• Linda Monk Fairs - Jury's Hotel, Great Russell St. 1^st May
• Midland Coin Fair, at the NEC cycle museum -9^th May
• Baldwin Auctions - 5^th and 6^th May

Past Events

30 years ago was a member’s evening and coin fair

1 year ago was “The Thames Water Collection; Secrets from the Depths” - Jill Greenaway

10 years ago was "Finds of Roman Coins: Their significance to Archaeology" by Jill Greenaway