[Elfsea] Coin sheds light on East-West trade

Vicki Marsh XaraXene at attbi.com
Tue Jul 9 15:33:22 PDT 2002


Cool. Thanks for sharing this with us!

Xene

(Go Byzantines!)

-----Original Message-----
From: elfsea-admin at ansteorra.org [mailto:elfsea-admin at ansteorra.org]On
Behalf Of Spence Mabry
Sent: Tuesday, July 09, 2002 2:26 PM
To: Elfsea (E-mail); Loch-Ruadh (E-mail)
Subject: [Elfsea] Coin sheds light on East-West trade


Coin sheds light on East-West trade

Archaeologists say find hints at alternate route to Silk Road


ASSOCIATED PRESS

BEIJING, July 8 A Byzantine-era gold coin unearthed in northwestern China
reinforces theories that the region was a key part of the ancient East-West
trade route, a research institute said Monday.
        THE ROMAN COIN, weighing eight-hundredths of an ounce, was excavated
from a tomb in Xiangride township in Dulan County in Qinghai province,
according to the Communist Party's People's Daily newspaper Web site.
       The paper quoted Xu Xinguo, head of the Qinghai Cultural Relics and
Archaeology Research Institute.
       Xu's assistant, Liu Baoshan, told The Associated Press the coin was
found under a skull in the tomb of an ethnic Tubo and appeared to date from
408-450.
       The Tubos were ancestors of modern Tibetans from the Northern
Dynasties of 386-550.
       It is the second ancient Roman coin found in the county. Xu said
archaeologists should consider that the area might have been an alternative
main route to the Silk Road, the land corridor that linked China with
central and western Asia and the Mediterranean between 100 B.C. and A.D.
800.
       Most scholars believe the route entered China's far northwestern
Xinjiang province through present-day Lanzhou city, in the neighboring Gansu
province. But Xu said several recent archaeological finds in Tubo tombs have
shifted attention west of Lanzhou to Dulan County.
         A parallel road to Xinjiang through the Qinghai's Qaidam Basin may
have been an equally important path, Xu said.
       Silver coins from ancient Persia found in the region in recent years
were further evidence of its significance, Liu said. Persia is now Iran.
       Ancient Rome was divided into two parts. The eastern capital was
Byzantium, or Constantinople, now known as Istanbul. The Byzantine Empire
was established in 312 and ended in 1453, when Constantinople fell to the
Ottoman Turks.


Ceatta

_______________________________________________
Elfsea mailing list
Elfsea at ansteorra.org
http://www.ansteorra.org/mailman/listinfo/elfsea




More information about the Elfsea mailing list