Roman coins found buried under ruins of Japanese castle

Roman coins in Japan

No surprise there were roman trading with China, China Traded with Japan.

Awesome find!

The four copper coins were retrieved from soil beneath Katsuren Castle on Okinawa Island, and were originally thought to be a hoax before their true provenance was revealed. The designs on the coins are difficult to decifer as they have been eroded over time, but x-ray analysis revealed several of the relics bore the image of Emperor Constantine I.

Wow. Bit of an upset for the history books.

Cool find! A couple months ago there was another thread about roman coins being found in India. I still find it fascinating just how far Roman influence reached.

Aliens.

Definitely Aliens.

I wonder how they kept martial arts secret for so long?

originally posted by: audubon
Wow. Bit of an upset for the history books.

How so?

originally posted by: audubon
Wow. Bit of an upset for the history books.

Not so much. Do the history books say, "Rome never traded with Japan." No. They just don't have much information about the issue. Besides, that's not even proven. They just found some coins. I have some coins from Bulgaria. I've never been there. If you found my Bulgarian coins you wouldn't suddenly say, "West Coast guy traded with Bulgaria."

The fact is there is plenty of evidence that everybody traded with everyone else over time. Maybe it wasn't "Silk Road" type established trading, but "dissemination" occurred, which shouldn't be all that surprising.

a reply to: athousandlives

Dont forget the possible Chinese remains found in Roman London!

Possible Chinese remains in Roman London

a reply to: cavtrooper7

They didn't seeing most old cultures have their own versions.
Up north we have the Age Old Lancastrian martial art of EckyThump it is just that popular culture likes all the Asian ones....joking aside what do you think Morris dancing is? martial arts!

Back to the op they got everywhere didn't they?.

originally posted by: TheKnightofDoom
a reply to: cavtrooper7

They didn't seeing most old cultures have their own versions.
Up north we have the Age Old Lancastrian martial art of EckyThump it is just that popular culture likes all the Asian ones....joking aside what do you think Morris dancing is? martial arts!

Back to the op they got everywhere didn't they?.

Here in the South West, we have "avehemeoldbabber". That usually follows a dozen pints and a kebab though.

originally posted by: audubon
Wow. Bit of an upset for the history books.

Well the Silk Road operated since ancient times. It's not that hard to believe western trade goods reached Japan via China or the sea

Very cool, if not expected, thanks for the link

a reply to: Butterfinger

As the joke goes "the Italians are great voyagers, they are always Roman around."

Bad pun aside the news doesn't surprise me; we have underestimated the ancients and their sophistication. The famous "aliens" meme doesn't do justice to the ingenuity of our species. Take the pyramids for example; according to some the only way that they could've achieved that feat is because aliens did it.

Rock art predates the pyramids by tens of thousands of years so if Von Daniken is correct does that mean the Cro Magnon men was given art classes by aliens?

a reply to: Butterfinger

Its known the Romans traversed most of the known world back then. Not all that surprising..

a reply to: Butterfinger

Awesome find! S&F

Made realize I haven't tweeted a thing for Obscuragator in two weeks instead of my normal once or twice a day. Ugh. I'll be glad when this election is over. Spending way way too much of my life reading/posting about politics recently.

It's unlikely that a Roman ship deliberately sailed to Japan though the Romans sent emissaries to China as early as the 2nd century CE. Of course this was an infrequent occurrence (by all accounts an exceptionally infrequent occurrence) in the centuries that followed and trading and almost all other exchange of information was indirect.

A small number of Roman coins turning up in an ancient Japanese castle isn't exactly an OOPArt but certainly a rare, exciting and altogether suprising find nonetheless!

Kool find , but it's not the first such find and what would eventually become the kingdom of Okinawa or Ryukyu at that era wasn't Japan but more allied to China , however other finds did found it's way into mainland Japan proper.

Japanese Tomb Found To House Rare Artifacts From Roman Empire

www.huffingtonpost.com...

And

Imported Glass in Japanese Tomb Identified

www.archaeology.org...
Both these finds were made at Nara one of the old capitols.
I read a book but forgot the title and author a longtime ago , that had some very interesting take on Japan's history , including the bloodline of the royal family and a long cover-up of an ancient Korean connection, the book also go into foreigners that came bringing influences now almost unrecognizable as anything but Japanese..if I remember will sure to pass it on to you guys.

In the past I've read how the ancient Jewish diaspora could have caused people to travel the silk road which would have led into Asia, and how an Israeli organization called Amishav goes around searching for Jewish heritage all over the world that can be traced back to ancient Israel.

So things like this aren't necessarily surprising considering how "interconnected" the world seems to have been in the past, and is still amazingly fascinating to know.

originally posted by: Foxlimainno
In the past I've read how the ancient Jewish diaspora could have caused people to travel the silk road which would have led into Asia, and how an Israeli organization called Amishav goes around searching for Jewish heritage all over the world that can be traced back to ancient Israel.

So things like this aren't necessarily surprising considering how "interconnected" the world seems to have been in the past, and is still amazingly fascinating to know.

I still can't remember that book but that was mentioned in it, in any case there were / is in fact a Chinese Jewish community in China ,debates on how long they have been there is not quite settled.

a reply to: Spider879

I don't suppose you have a link to that? Sounds like a very interesting read.

It comes as no surprise. Romans traded around the known world, just so happens the "known world" was quite a lot larger than some modern scholars think...

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: Spider879

I don't suppose you have a link to that? Sounds like a very interesting read.

It comes as no surprise. Romans traded around the known world, just so happens the "known world" was quite a lot larger than some modern scholars think...

Sorry it was a book I read yrs ago, time permitting i'll go down to the library and maybe just maybe I can find it.

Oh wait a min if you are talking about the Jewish community in China then here goes.

Kifeng Jews of China

For 166 years, beginning in 960 C.E., China was ruled by the emperors of the Song Dynasty from their capital at Kaifeng, a bustling metropolis straddling the legendary Silk Road that linked their sprawling domain to its trading partners in the West. And, it was sometime during this period that a group of Jews were invited for an audience with the emperor. Jews were not newcomers to China. Some had lived under Chinese rule from sometime after 92 CE, during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE- 220 CE), when they resided in what at the time was called the Western Region (roughly Xinjiang Province today) in special enclaves that were set aside by the Chinese for foreigners. During the reign of Emperor Wen (518-604 CE) of the Sui Dynasty, large number of foreign traders and people of different creeds resided in Changan, then the capital of China. Chinese annals briefly mentioned the customs and rituals of some creeds, but otherwise they could hardly distinguish one from the other. Jewish settlers and a synagogue are mentioned by name in a Tang (618-906) poem and other records confirm Jewish settlers in the 7th century. A rather obscure poem by an unknown poet, who apparently wrote in the late Tang, described life in China, and mentioned that in Changan (Xian today) there were churches, temples, synagogues and mosques for … Muslims and Jews.
kopjik.wordpress.com... 7%95%D7%95%D7%A2%D7%9C%D7%98/yiddish-in-china/

Yeah the possibility of Jews and others reaching ancient Japan is certainly not out of the question.