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from the search-for-roman-vending-machine-begins dept.
The eyes of a visiting archaeologist lit up when he was shown the 10 tiny, rusty discs that had sat unnoticed in storage for two and a half years at a dig on a southern Japan island.
He had been to archaeological sites in Italy and Egypt, and recognized the "little round things" as old coins, including a few likely dating to the Roman Empire.
"I was so excited I almost forgot what I was there for, and the coins were all we talked about," said Toshio Tsukamoto of the Gangoji Institute for Research of Cultural Property in Nara, an ancient Japanese capital near Kyoto.
The discovery, announced last month, is baffling. How did the coins, some dating to the third or fourth century, wind up half a world away in a medieval Japanese castle on the island of Okinawa? Experts suspect they may have arrived centuries later via China or Southeast Asia, not as currency but as decoration or treasure.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday October 20 2016, @05:06AM
Japan though at the time was rather famously isolationist, pretty much right up until the 1800s. For those coins to have made it from the Roman Empire, they would have had to change hands a half dozen times from SPQR, through Constanabul, and onwards on the inland trade routes, crossing through China, and then traded again to Japanese merchants.
If coins could talk, I would have loved to hear their story.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by Arik on Thursday October 20 2016, @10:00AM
Well, yeah. So? Trade goods have been making journeys like that since the stone ages.
"If coins could talk, I would have loved to hear their story."
You could say the same for the eastern coins that show up in viking hordes as well.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 20 2016, @10:07AM