400 Mughal-era coins found at a temple in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur

A few labourers got hold of the coin while working at a construction site of a temple in Uttar Pradesh.

In the Nanauta area in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur district, the police on Monday asserted that around 400 coins dating back to the Mughal era were found during construction work at a temple. The incident occured when a few labourers stumbled upon the coins on Sunday night while they were digging to erect a boundary wall at Sati Dham temple in Hussainpur village.

The Superintendent of Police (Rural) Sagar Jain confirmed the same, as per a report in PTI. Soon, the police reached the construction site and took custody of the coins, he added.

For the unversed, the coins were adorned with Arabic inscriptions, which meant they were extensively used during the Mughal period. The coins also indicated their historical significance, and now the archaeological department will further examine the coins in order to know more about the composition of the metals used in their creation.

More details are awaited.

History of the Mughal coins

Meanwhile, the coins of the Mughals can be sorted into four phases: the regional phase that lasted from 1526 to 1556 with emperors Babur and Humayun; the classical phase (1556-1707) with leaders like Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb; the decadent phase (1707-1720), which began with Shah Alam I, and finally the quasi-Mughal phase (1720-1835) which saw the issuing of ‘Mughal’ coins issued by Awadh, Hyderabad and Rohilkhand, and empires, like the Marathas, Sikhs, Rajputs. During the last period, the coins carried the nominal consent of the ruling Mughal emperor.

With the end of the Uprising of 1857, the decline of the Mughal empire was seen.

Now with the archaeological department studying the newly found coins, they would be able to inform further about the period of Mughal era they belong to.