COINS AND CHRONOLOGY OF THE EARLY INDEPENDENT SULTANS OF BENGAL

The Collector of Dacca, in his letter No. 1440, dated the 24th April 1918, forwarded to the author for examination and report 346 silver coins of the Bengal Sultans found in the wall of a deserted house belonging to one Mahendra Kumar Das of the village of Ketun, under the Rupganj Police Station of Dacca District. After careful examination, these coins were acquired by Government under the Treasure Trove Act and allotted to different Museums. The report asked for by the Collector of Dacca necessitated a detailed study of this unique find. With the progress of his investigations, he was more and more struck by the confusion that prevailed in the field of Bengal numismatics of this particular period even in standard works on the subject, and also by the amount of correction and new information that this new find afforded. He was therefore in the end led to prepare the present monograph. Numismatic finds have been unimportant and few in numbers, numismatists dealing with Bengal coins fewer still, Arabic scholarships seem to have declined and the zeal displayed in hunting up unpublished inscriptions of the Muhammadan Sultans of Bengal has almost disappeared.