Refining the Rupee Pyrotechnical Assaying and Chemical Metallurgy in the Mughal Imperial Mint (c. 1556–1707 CE)

Resum

This study examines the applied chemistry, thermal engineering, and specialized metallurgy that sustained the production of high-purity coinage in the central mints of the Mughal Empire between 1556 and 1707 CE. Departing from conventional numismatic scholarship, which tends to read coins chiefly as instruments of dynastic chronology or political messaging, the paper treats the imperial mint as a standardized, pre-industrial laboratory of extractive metallurgy. It reconstructs the pyrotechnical logic of cupellation the controlled oxidation of lead used to draw pure silver out of crude bullion together with the chemical separation of gold and silver alloys through locally generated acid. Reading the technical regulations preserved in Abu’l-Fazl’s Ain-i-Akbari against the assay evidence of surviving imperial rupayas, the paper argues that hereditary artisan lineages attained a currency fineness of roughly ninety-six to ninety-nine per cent pure silver without any modern analytical apparatus, relying instead on disciplined sensory judgement and reproducible workflows. The stability of the Mughal tri-metallic monetary order, it concludes, rested ultimately upon the chemical literacy of the empire’s minting guilds.