| Product
Code |
: |
PUD NO_840-1-1 AE |
| Subject | : | James Prinsep |
| Size | : | 49 mm |
| Metal | : | Copper |
| Year | : | 1840 |
| Description | : | obv. Bare head of Prinsep, left, around border legend : JAMES PRINSEP BORN 1799 DIED 1840. Signed : W WYON R.A. , rev. Blank.
James Prinsep arrived in India as Assistant Assay-Master at the Calcutta Mint in 1819 at the age of 20. He had studied architecture and been employed at the Royal Mint before departure for India. He set up a second mint in Benares but it was only after his recall to Calcutta to work with the Assay-Master, Horace Wilson, Secretary to the Asiatic Society and a Sanskrit scholar, that he became interested in the inscriptions on ancient coins that Wilson was attempting to catalogue. Before long he was immersed in deciphering on ancient coins that Wilson was attempting to catalogue. Before long he was immersed in deciphering script on ancient monuments. As the Secretary of the Asiatic Society and Assay-Master (following Wilson’s return to England), he spent all day at the mint and evenings with his coins and monument inscriptions, at the same time producing prolific articles for the Society. He was exhausting himself. By 1838, with the help of many correspondents in India, Ceylon and Nepal, he was able to decipher the Ashoka columns. Then, starting on the rock inscriptions, his mind gave out and he was sent to England by ship, in November, 1838. He died without recovering his sanity. Not a great scholar, in the mode of Jones, but possessing unlimited tenacity and enthusiasm; one of the most talented Englishmen to have served in India and a pioneer in the study of the history and civilization of India. |
