The Broach coin-hoard as evidence of the import of valuta across the Arabian Sea during the 13th and 14th centuries

The Broach (Bharoch) hoard found in 1882, though its publication is statisti cally incomplete, offers evidence of the movement and import of valuta into western India during the 13th and more particularly the 14th century. Broach and Cambay were the principal ports of Gujarat during this period. The hoard, found in a brass pot, consisted of 448 gold coins, besides pieces of coins and a small ingot, and about 1,200 silver coins and pieces. The coinages represented are those of Genoa, Venice, Egypt, Armenia, Persia, southern Arabia and the Dehfi" Sultanate. With the exception of two 12th-century coins the dates of minting fall between A.D. 1260 and 1382, which we may take to be the approxi mate date of burial.1 Found in the hoard were 47 gold tonkas of the Sultans of Dehl?, in number just under a tenth of the gold coins in the hoard, but perhaps a sixth of the whole in gold-content. From the dates at which these coin-types were issued it is clear that these coins of the ruling power did not ordinarily come to Broach in the processes of trade. Only three gold coins are from the current reign of Feroz Sh?h Tughluq, and these appear to be of types minted two decades before the burial of the hoard. Two coins in the name of the unsuccessful pretender Mahmud Shah b. Muhammad b. Tughluq cannot be other than a proclamatory issue.2 A further 35 gold coins are of the reign of Muhammad b. Tughluq (A.D. 1325?51); of these 25 represent a single issue of the last seven years of his reign, a period when the Sultan himself was campaigning in western India.3 The numismatic indications of the hoard support the literary evidence of the main pattern of trade between Gujarat and metropolitan Dehl?: a one-sided despatch by the tax-farmers of the revenues of Gujarat in the form of luxury commodities or specie.4 A striking feature of the hoard is the entire absence of silver issues of the Dehl? Sultanate in a collection of about 1,200 silver coins. This reflects the relative scarcity of silver in the territories of the Dehl? Sultans, which began around A.D. 1330 and increased in severity in subsequent decades. The loss by the Dehl? Sultans of control over the province of Bengal and the revenues remitted from there made it difficult to maintain the 10:1 silver to gold parity on which the monetary system of the Dehl? Sultanate was based.5 Of the 448 gold coins of the Broach hoard, 367 are described by O. Codrington as of the Bahr? Mamluks, rulers of Egypt and Syria, and he provides a catalogue of 324 of these. They are mainly heavy issues of upwards of 100 gr. (6.48 gm.) compared to the roughly 170gr. (11.016gm.) of the Delh? Sultanate tankas.