
Coin found off northern Australia may be from pre-1400 Africa - curtis
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/12/it-could-change-everything-coin-found-off-northern-australia-may-be-from-pre-1400-africa
======
contingencies
Old news (~2013). Australian Geographic had a feature on it years ago. Here's
one of their articles:
[https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/history-
cultu...](https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/history-
culture/2014/08/mystery-of-ancient-african-coins-found-in-australia/)

Apparently they also found Chinese coins
[https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2014/08/18th-
ce...](https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2014/08/18th-century-
chinese-coin-found-in-arnhem-land/)

Personally, having studied Chinese history, travelled the area fairly
extensively, and read all of the Ming Dynasty texts around Zheng He's voyages
(~1400s), I am sort of convinced it would have been unthinkable for the
Chinese _not_ to have visited northern Australia, since (a) presence of land
should have been well known / established through local knowledge, currents,
clouds, winds, and seabird migrations; (b) they went to so many other places,
it seems insane they would stop just after the equator when they already had
compass-aided navigation and strong (for the period) navigational astronomy.
Still, stranger things have happened...

~~~
netcan
Wouldn't it be odd for the Ming fleet to have "found" Australia, but not have
left surviving documentation?

Is suppose they mightn't have realized the size of Australia.

~~~
unixbeard1337
Manuscripts had to be copied, and the copyists were Confucians who, as a
class, had little interest in such things.

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flukus
The whole article is full of sensationalism.

1\. The only connection to Kilwa is the size and shape of the coin, that's
flimsy at best.

2\. It's not evidence of direct contact, there are plenty of instances of
coins from one place ending up in another with no direct contact.

3\. Trade between Northern Australia and Indonesia is already somewhat well
established.

4\. Similarly Indian ocean trade has been going on for thousands of years.

This might be a cool find and further evidence of trade between Australia and
Indonesia but it's not rewriting history.

~~~
atroche
Well said.

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jayalpha
Beringer's Lying Stones
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beringer%27s_Lying_Stones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beringer%27s_Lying_Stones)

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tr33house
In case you have to check like I did, Kilwa is in present day Tanzania.

The Portuguese colonized the east African coast but were run off by the Arabs
and Africans in the region. Intermarriages between Arabs and the local Bantu
led to the creation of a new tribe, the Swahili

~~~
monus21
It's more of the Portuguese Empire collapsed otherwise they'd still be around
till today. FYI, the Arabs in question here were the Omani Sultanate who
operated a gigantic slave trade on the East African coast.

~~~
seventhtiger
Not commonly known, but the highest incidence of Arab genetic markers is in
Yemen, followed closely by East Africa. Based only on genetics, an Ethiopian
or Somali is much more Arab than an Egyptian, Syrian, or Iraqi. Although
culturally speaking East Africa did not adopt/uphold Arabic language and
culture as much as the Levant or Egypt.

It's a tangent but I always found it fascinating.

------
sanxiyn
A similar case for those interested:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_penny](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_penny)

~~~
bogidon
I feel like I learned something special about archeology from that. So cool to
be able to dispute the comings and goings of civilizations.

------
_ph_
Whatever the significance of this coin found is, I find it extremely
faszinating how many archeological finds turn up in recent years which show
how much "globalization" existed in ancient times. Even without direct long
distance connections, trade connected most human societies.

But also individuals seem to have travelled further, than one would imagine in
absence of travel infrastructure. It has been known for long time how the
vikings traded with the mediterranean, but recent findings about stonehenge
show, how big the sphere of contribution was.

For all societies which had ocean-going ships doing off-costal travels, I
would expect them to have occasionally travelled much further, than most
history-writing accounts for. Besides the known viking settlements off the
American coast, it would actually be quite surprising, if not a few ships had
reached the mainland. So I would not be surprised about any artefacts being
found in America, pointing at pre-columbian contacts.

~~~
skookumchuck
> than most history-writing accounts for

Historical accounts are necessarily a subset of actual history. Just like the
fossil record is necessarily a subset of the actual flora and fauna.

I'm sure there's an awful lot of important stuff we don't know about history,
just because nobody bothered to write it down, or their manuscripts got lost.

Nobody knows whether King Arthur existed or not, for example.

~~~
_ph_
Yes, the known history is neccessarily a subset of the actual one - but I
think we often don't imagine how large the gap is and also often make the
mistake of assuming that this gap is smaller than it is. Consequentely, our
"models" of ancient societies or the biology of the dinosaurs are far too
limited.

~~~
Mirioron
I think one reason for us not understanding this gap well is the way history
is taught. We learn about the earliest civilizations. We assume that we know a
comparable amount from later periods in other regions about other
civilizations, but we often don't. In Europe we have a wealth of information
about ancient Greece and the Roman Republic, but we know relatively little in
comparison about Scandinavia even hundreds of years later.

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User23
Coins last a very long time. A 2000 year old Roman coin could be lost by a
Spaniard in the new world in the 16th century. The strike date only provides
an upper bound on how long ago the coin was placed. The lower bound is the
present.

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fastball
Is it completely impossible for a coin to fall into the ocean in Kilwa
(Tanzania) and just get washed to NE Australia? 1000 years is a long time and
could account for a lot of movement in the ocean.

~~~
Retric
If you mean by ocean currents then yes. Coins sink even in a fast flowing
stream, ocean currents are slow. Beyond that it would effectively need to
climb a mountain at the other side.

A general idea was it was found on the top part of here:
[https://opentextbc.ca/geology/wp-
content/uploads/sites/110/2...](https://opentextbc.ca/geology/wp-
content/uploads/sites/110/2015/08/Atlantic-Ocean-floor-within-300-km-of-Nova-
Scotia.png)

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maehwasu
The misleading headline (likely not written by the author) is meant to imply
the possibility of some sort of hitherto-unknown 1300s trade route.

In fact, the article indicates that the most likely scenario is Portuguese
traders blown off course from Timor in the 1500s, but the lede is buried quite
far down.

Very interesting nonetheless, but bs headlines and buried ledes piss me off.

~~~
olivermarks
Agree, ridiculous and misleading headline. The coin's history will never be
fully known but there are thousands of possibilities around how it ended up
where it did

~~~
ggm
five of them found on the beach in WWII

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basicplus2
alternate explaination..

Yeh i collect coins and i dropped it.. its mine..

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levlaz
Plot twist ... It was a Bitcoin.

~~~
icholy
Save the jokes for reddit

