Ancient African coins spark international treasure hunt

This old story has been re-discovered by NBC News national:

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A wooden fishing dhow lies near the ruins of an ancient fort on the shores of
Kilwa Kisiwani in Tanzani in 2006.

Can a handful of ancient African coins, discovered almost 70 years ago by a
lone soldier on a remote island, rewrite history?

A weathered, hand-drawn map, with an "X" marking the spot on the Australian
island where the African coins were discovered, might help an international
team of researchers, who will travel to the island this summer, answer that question.

...

Adding to the adventure's appeal is an Aboriginal legend that mentions a hidden
cave, located near where the coins were found, that holds a treasure of
doubloons and weaponry from an ancient era, according to a news release from IUPUI.

Despite their rich history, the old copper coins - now in the Powerhouse Museum
in Sydney - have limited financial value.

Article:
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/ancient-african-coins-spark-international-treasure-hunt-6C10467532

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Interesting idea Willie. I am very wary of "revisionist history" though. Too many times propaganda is (so called) found and taken for fact, perhaps twisted into the view of the day. Good read though.

 

I agree with Ripley. The problem with people using coins to revise history is many times dates and geography are meaningless. There are loads of examples. We know for a fact that ships used to take on ballast in Europe and then sail to America. When they got here, they would dump ballast. Quite a few times that ballast would have ancient roman coins in it. More than a couple of times some college intellectual would find out about ancient roman coins found in the port of Philadelphia or NYC and leap to some cockamamie theory how the ancient Romans discovered America. Other times money is simply money. Just as likely in this story is the coins were being used as current coinage a few hundred years ago, (even though they might have been minted 1000 years ago), and someone simply lost them. This is very common. In China, they used to dig up 2400 year old cash coins, then go down to the market and spend them. Money is money in many ways.

Academicians are always WAY, WAY too quick to assume a coin was lost just a year or two after being coined, and was personally lost BY the people who coined it. Many times that coin gets deposited centuries or even millenia after it was struck, for a multitude of reasons.

 

Whatever academic initially trumpeted this claim has a woefully poor understanding of the complicated numismatics of Kilwa. Here's what I said in an earlier thread regarding this "discovery":