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For some months there has been a major archaeological project in the south of India. There has been extensive planning to produce a series of peer reviewed journal articles for our proposed Journal. A wonderful international team of dedicated researchers has been working to piece together various finds and information and preparation is well underway for such articles.

However there has been a breach of research security. This is not the first time this has happened with seminal numismatic research such is the desperation of certain researchers to obtain publishing advantage.

In recent years Arthur Needham (Foundation Mentor and Visiting Fellow) in conjunction with CA Mohammed Tariq Ansari has worked on various international presentations on the use of coinage on the Silk Road (overland and maritime). This has essentially required the recasting of Gresham's law to facilitate in view of a number of findings. A slightly altered and improved version was recently presented to students and in this the following advice was given " 

1. If, in investigations of local coin finds in an archaeological context, discovers a large number of copper coins from a distant Empire and noting that, for the era in question, copper was essentially not recognised as a coinage of trade then, given the context, the possibility of a permanent settlement being present by traders from the coin issuing region rather than just incidental trading visits."

In a number of countries, we are hampered by inadequate Antiquities laws that allow for the "discrete" disposal of found coins. This will frequently obstruct clear and precise investigations.

Under the watchful eye of our Foundation President K R Ram a laborious and highly detailed data gathering exercise has been undertaken in parts of the far south of India. Since Warmington's ambitious work on Roman Indian trade from the 1920's through to Paula Turner's work in 2016 there have been various other noteworthy contributions.

These works concentrated predominantly on the coinage of trade, silver, and gold coinage of the Roman Empire. 

Our work has looked at the large number of finds of copper coinage that have been generally unreported to any extent. In this we have concentrated on areas away from known or suspected Roman port/trade operations so that "normal" finds from known areas were not confused with the finds reported.

Preliminary data that will be reported on in much greater detail show the following:

1. A large number of Roman Empire coins are found in areas of the far south of India away from the coastal trading regions.

2. These coins when Roman in issue cover a much greater period than previous work suggests.

3. Very few silver coins are found.

4. The vast majority of Roman coins so far identified are from eastern mints.

5. A number of early Byzantine copper coins have also been discovered.

6. There is evidence that a small number of coins found are local imitation types.

7. Indo Greek coins have been found as well as a small number of western satrap silver and copper coins. There is evidence that the western satrap coins are cast copies. 

8. A number of Greek coins have been found and these date back as far as possibly the 4th C BCE. These include not only Greek colonies in the region of modern Turkey but also mainland Greece. It is noted that coins remained in circulation for long periods of time, but we have preliminary evidence that copper coins, the coins of the permanent marketplace rather than trade at this time, cover dates of more than 700 years. 

9. There is now fundamental evidence that Roman copper coins predominantly although not exclusively, made up a large part of the circulating money supply in areas of far southern India. The such widespread evidence of such coins and the dissipation of coins through various methods from modern finds has hidden to a large extent how widely circulated and heavily used Roman issue copper coins were. It is now obvious that if large hoards, 200 plus coins of Roman copper type, have not been found over time then it is only a matter of time before these are isolated and correctly reported on.

Given that it is unusual for such important information to be released before formal publication it was thought necessary, given the circumstances, to do so. This should not take away from the importance of the coming peer reviewed journal items on the coins. There is an obvious question here given our Gresham's law work, but it is still a little too early for that now reasonable speculation.