The earliest of these copper coins, some of which may be as early as the fifth century B.C., were cast. The casting of coins by pouring molten metal into a cavity formed by joining two moulds together must have been a very ancient practice in India. Sometimes the moulds of several coins were joined together for the casting process, and the joins thus left are not infrequently found still adhering to the coins (Pl. I, 3).[6] These coins are for the most part anonymous. Even after striking from dies had superseded this clumsy method in the North-West, we find cast coins being issued at the close of the third century by the kingdoms of Kauśāmbī, Ayodhyā and Mathurā, some of which bear the names of local kings in the Brāhmī[7] script. [6] This process was in operation in Morocco until the middle of the nineteenth century. Nearchus, the companion of Alexander, says that the Indians used only cast bronze but not hammered. Strabo XV, C. 716. [7] Brāhmī (Fig. 1), Phœnician in origin, was the native script of Northern India, and was written from left to right. Kharoshṭhī (Fig. 2) was a derivation from the Aramaic script, and was written from right to left; it is believed to have been introduced during the Persian domination of Western India, and continued in use on the North-West frontier until about the fourth century A.D. The earliest die-struck coins, with a device on one side of the coin only, have been assigned to the end of the fourth century B.C. Some of these, with a lion device, were certainly struck at Taxila, where they are chiefly found. Others present various Buddhist symbols, such as the _bodhi-tree_, _svastika_, or the plan of a monastery, and may therefore belong to the time of Aśoka, when Buddhism first reached the North-West, or Gandhāra, as the territory was then called. The method of striking these early coins was peculiar, in that the die was impressed on the metal when hot, so that a deep square incuse, which contains the device, appears on the coin. A similar incuse appears on the later double-die coins of Pañchāla (Pl. I, 4), Kauśāmbī, and on some of Mathurā. This method of striking may have been introduced from Persia, and was perhaps a derivative from the art of seal-engraving.