# Ancient Roman Coins Found In Japanese Catle. Newslink. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 28, 2016, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-roman-coins-found-in-japanese-catle-newslink/767098 "2016-09-28T01:52:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-roman-coins-found-in-japanese-catle-newslink/767098/1 "2016-09-28T01:52:06Z")
sunnava gun. > **[Ancient Roman coins found in ruined Japanese castle | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/style/article/ancient-roman-coins-japan/index.html)** > > When archeologist Hiroyuki Miyagi heard that a bunch of ancient Roman and Ottoman coins had been unearthed from the ruins of an old castle in Okinawa, he initially thought it was a hoax. > [@](#): > > Dubbing it a “strange and interesting find,” Yokou explained that Katsuren castle was known to have trade relations with China and other neighboring Asian countries in the 14th and 15th century. > > “We don’t think that there is a direct link between the Roman empire and Katsuren castle, but the discovery confirms how this region had trade relations with the rest of Asia,” Yokou, told CNN. > > Both Yokou and Tsukamoto speculated that the coins ended up in Japan after passing through different trade routes that linked the West to Asia ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-roman-coins-found-in-japanese-catle-newslink/767098/2 "2016-09-28T02:16:12Z")
I am disappointed in the lack of gold-pooping Japanese cows. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-roman-coins-found-in-japanese-catle-newslink/767098/3 "2016-09-28T03:40:53Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > I am disappointed in the lack of gold-pooping Japanese cows. Me too! 🙂 Very interesting but nothing about coins surprises me much. Coins are metal and metal has value - and value tends to move around somewhat. There were a small batch/hord of ancients found at a 1770s farm site in up-state NY 30some years back. Turns out the first European settler was Irish and probably brought them over with him. It’s happened enough to become a “plot” in various historical novels. Roman coins turning up in a place Japan is what raises this to the level of news for me. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-roman-coins-found-in-japanese-catle-newslink/767098/4 "2016-09-28T04:41:46Z")
When you read the story it becomes a lot less amazing. There were a total of ten ancient Roman coins found in a pile of coins - and most of the rest were coins from the Ottoman Empire. And some of the Ottoman coins in the pile were dated as “recently” as 1687. This isn’t an ancient cache of coins from the first century. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-roman-coins-found-in-japanese-catle-newslink/767098/5 "2016-09-28T07:40:54Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > When you read the story it becomes a lot less amazing. There were a total of ten ancient Roman coins found in a pile of coins - and most of the rest were coins from the Ottoman Empire. And some of the Ottoman coins in the pile were dated as “recently” as 1687. > > This isn’t an ancient cache of coins from the first century. The castle was only used until 1611, so the Ottoman coins indicate a post-occupation deposition of the hoard. But on the other hand, the castle was only built in the 13th C. so _waaay_ after Roman times. I’m pretty sure they ended up there the same way any hoard does - someone was trying to hide them. Likely they thought the empty castle/ruins were a good hiding place. The biggest curiosity, for me, is that they are not precious metal coins (both the Roman and Ottoman coins look like copper alloy) which is just a _weird_ thing to hoard in a relatively metal-scarce country where they have no value as specie. Maybe they were being kept as smelting stock. How they got to Japan is harder to say, but probably via the China and the Silk Road, rather than European traders. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-roman-coins-found-in-japanese-catle-newslink/767098/6 "2016-09-28T08:28:24Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > The biggest curiosity, for me, is that they are not precious metal coins (both the Roman and Ottoman coins look like copper alloy) which is just a _weird_ thing to hoard in a relatively metal-scarce country where they have no value as specie. Maybe they were being kept as smelting stock. I don’t understand the logic here. If the country is relatively metal-poor, wouldn’t that make even base metal (copper or bronze) coins somewhat more valuable and thus more likely to be hoarded? > [@](#): > > How they got to Japan is harder to say, but probably via the China and the Silk Road, rather than European traders. Likely. It should be noted that Roman coins are just as likely as Ottoman coins to end up in a far away land. They are equally as far away and Roman coins circulated in Europe and the Middle East long after the fall of the Empire. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-roman-coins-found-in-japanese-catle-newslink/767098/7 "2016-09-28T10:21:08Z")
Not really that surprising. Certainly less so than [the recent news story about Chinese skeletons being found in a Roman cemetery in London](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3803648/A-meeting-two-ancient-empires-Chinese-skeletons-Roman-cemetery-promise-rewrite-history.html). But even that [might not be quite so simple](http://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2016/09/23/chinese-skeletons-in-roman-britain-not-so-fast/#4339d2d6ef9b) [as it first appears](http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2016/09/did-chinese-live-in-roman-london.html). ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-roman-coins-found-in-japanese-catle-newslink/767098/8 "2016-09-28T10:55:46Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > I am disappointed in the lack of gold-pooping Japanese cows. Beef Bullion…? ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-roman-coins-found-in-japanese-catle-newslink/767098/9 "2016-09-28T12:53:22Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > The biggest curiosity, for me, is that they are not precious metal coins (both the Roman and Ottoman coins look like copper alloy) which is just a _weird_ thing to hoard in a relatively metal-scarce country where they have no value as specie. Maybe they were being kept as smelting stock. The ones in NY were mostly bronze as well. The speculation was that the silver and gold were converted to local value and those were the leftovers. The metal still had value (cooking pots and things around the house) especially on the frontier where metal was hard to find and could have been used as needed; smelted and recast/shaped. Since Japan was metal-scarce there still would have been more than fair value there - enough to justify hiding. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-roman-coins-found-in-japanese-catle-newslink/767098/10 "2016-09-28T13:47:58Z")
On the reverse side, have the ancient Chinese porcelain seals (as in wax seal impressing, not barking) found all over Britain ever been explained? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2016, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ancient-roman-coins-found-in-japanese-catle-newslink/767098/11 "2016-09-29T21:58:43Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > I don’t understand the logic here. If the country is relatively metal-poor, wouldn’t that make even base metal (copper or bronze) coins somewhat more valuable and thus more likely to be hoarded? No, I’d have expected them to be melted down and made into articles the Japanese would actually consider more valuable than the constituent metal - and then _that_ be hoarded. > [@](#): > > Likely. It should be noted that Roman coins are just as likely as Ottoman coins to end up in a far away land. They are equally as far away and Roman coins circulated in Europe and the Middle East long after the fall of the Empire. 1100+ years is quite a lot of “Long after”