Unusual discovery on the Japanese island of Okinawa: Roman coins found among the ruins of a medieval castle

Japanese archaeologists announced Wednesday the discovery for the first time within Japan some coins dating from Roman times.

The coins were found in the ruins of a castle subtropical Okinawa island at a distance of ten thousand kilometers from Rome, according to Le Figaro.

"I thought first that it was one cent coins in vuzunarele fallen American soldiers," he told AFP archaeologist Hiroki Miyagi making an allusion to American military bases in Okinawa. "But after you've rinsed with water, I had a shock: coins were much older."

A team of researchers worked three years at the archaeological site of the castle Katsuren. Built in the late thirteenth century and the beginning of the fourteenth century and abandoned 200 years later, the castle appearing from 2013 on UNESCO's World Heritage list.

After an X-ray examination on the parts that are similar in size to the currencies of ten cents, they could see Latin and what appeared to be the image of Emperor Constantine I and a soldier equipped with a lance. Other coins discovered dating back to the Ottoman Empire until the early seventeenth century. Archaeologists were perplexed to how these objects have appeared on this remote island in the southern Japanese archipelago.

"Castle was the residence of a feudal lord enrichment through regional trade." Negosturii East Asia from the XIV and XV were using coins round Chinese with a perforation of a square in the middle and is unlikely currencies Western have been used as a means of payment, "said M. Miyagi, who teaches at Okinawa International University." I think they got those coins in southeast China. "

Source: Mediafax