Roman coins in Japanese ruins, but their origin baffles

[UEL]

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Arts-and...RcNp4.facebook

TOKYO: 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.

...

Announced last month, the discovery 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?

Very interesting. Coins from several different eras (4th century Roman to 17th century Ottoman) found buried in the ruins of a Japanese fortress in Okinawa destroyed in the 16th century. I can hear the rumours starting now.

[ganzfeld]

As cool as this discovery is, the answer to where they came from is likely to be rather mundane: through trade with China, Korea, Indonesia, etc. The most likely answer for why they would be intentionally buried (if they were - because everything at the site is buried) is in the article.

Tsukamoto said the coins might have been intentionally planted as a pacifying ritual at the castle, which was abandoned in 1458, similar to armor, jewelry and other valuables buried in funeral rituals in Okinawa.

[UEL]

I know that there is a good, and solid reason why they are there.

But, I know enough nutbars to suspect time travel or other conspiracy.

[Richard W]

You'd surely have to be a bigger nutbar than usual to posit time travel as an explanation for a fourth-century coin being found in a fifteenth-century hoard... if it was a fifteenth-century coin in a fourth-century hoard then perhaps!

My granny used to have some old Chinese coins in a tin in her house in England. I reckon she was a space alien.

[thorny locust]

Originally Posted by Richard W

You'd surely have to be a bigger nutbar than usual to posit time travel as an explanation for a fourth-century coin being found in a fifteenth-century hoard.

I think the "problem" is that the seventeenth-century coins were found in a layer thought to be 14th or 15th century.

Since humans (among others) have been known to bury things, I think there's a much more likely solution than time travel, though; as, apparently, does at least one of the archaeologists involved.

[jimmy101_again]

Originally Posted by thorny locust

Since humans (among others) have been known to bury things, I think there's a much more likely solution than time travel...

You are no fun.

[thorny locust]

But I think it's lots of fun to point out things like that!

[crocoduck_hunter]

Originally Posted by thorny locust

I think the "problem" is that the seventeenth-century coins were found in a layer thought to be 14th or 15th century.

Since humans (among others) have been known to bury things, I think there's a much more likely solution than time travel, though; as, apparently, does at least one of the archaeologists involved.

Obviously it was someone from the 14th Century who traveled to the 17th Century so that they could bury the coins!

[UEL]

Well, I do have friends and relatives (not on this board obviously) that do believe in the Bermuda Triangle, Aliens building pyramids and such.

http://www.paranormal-encyclopedia.c...gons-triangle/

The Dragon's Triangle will play heavily in their thoughts about this find (if they learn of it. I'm not telling them).

Shhhh.

[Skeptic]

Originally Posted by UEL

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Arts-and...RcNp4.facebook



Very interesting. Coins from several different eras (4th century Roman to 17th century Ottoman) found buried in the ruins of a Japanese fortress in Okinawa destroyed in the 16th century. I can hear the rumours starting now.

If my place burnt down, and the ruins were bulldozed, and the land left to grow over till a dig was done 200 years from now, - the archaeologists would make an interesting discovery. I can see the news article now. "4th century Roman coins found in 20th century Vegemite jar in 21st century ruins". (They'd also find a 19th century rifle too). Proof of time travel, no doubt.

Incidentally, Roman coins, particularly 4th century British, are very common and quite cheap. You can get them for about 20 dollars each.

[Jay Temple]

Originally Posted by UEL

I know that there is a good, and solid reason why they are there.

But, I know enough nutbars to suspect time travel or other conspiracy.

Do any of the coins depict something that resembles a 1960's British police box?

[crocoduck_hunter]

No, but there's something that looks a lot like a phone booth on one.