Officials of the Department of Archaeology and Museums have unearthed a coin hoard at the Phanigiri Buddhist site in Suryapet district. The team led by N. Sagar, the excavation director and B. Mallu, the co-excavator, found an earthen pot with 16.7 cm in diameter and 15 cm height at a depth of two feet on March 29. Inside the pot, the team found 3,730 lead coins with elephant symbol on one side and Ujjain symbol on the other side. According to the archaeologists, the coins belong to the Ikshvaku period dated between 3rd century and 4th century Common Era.
Besides the coins, the archaeologists discovered stone beads, glass beads, shell bangle fragments, stucco motifs, broken limestone sculptures, a wheel of a toy cart, final nails and pottery. The Phanigiri is an important Buddhist site that has only recently gained the importance it deserves with many of the excavated artefacts travelling the world most recently to the New York Met Museum.
