Roadworks Unearth 400-lb Trove Of 1,000-Year-Old Coins

This is the moment a pot of 1,000-year-old Chinese coins is unearthed by roadworks nearly two decades after a similar discovery was made just 300 feet away.

The trove of oxidised bronze coins found by workers in the county of Hunyuan, in China’s northern province of Shanxi, has been dated to the Song Dynasty (960 to 1279 AD).

According to the county cultural relics office, around 200 kilogrammes (440 lb) of coins were found, each with the signature ‘rosette’ hole at its centre, which was used to string the money together for convenience and storage.

Credit: AsiaWire

Officials say the find on 9th June was unearthed when the ground was lifted by an excavator during the building of a water main.

A large ceramic pot was shattered by the heavy machinery, and workers found it filled to the brim with the ancient coins.

A spokesman for the Hunyuan Cultural and Tourism Bureau said the coins were handed to experts at the cultural relics office.”

The Hunyuan Bureau of Cultural Relics said the Song coin would be cleaned and appraised by experts of the era before being put on display at a local museum.

The bureau said a pot of coins dating back to the Tang (618 to 907 AD) and Song dynasties – known as China’s ‘Golden Age’ of literature and invention – was uncovered in 2002 during the construction of a home just 300 feet from the recent excavation site.

Experts believe present-day Hunyuan County was an important trading post during a time of booming commerce in the region at the turn of the last millennium.


To find out more about the author, editor or agency that supplied this story – please click below.
Story By: John FengSub-EditorJoseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report

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