News Ancient Roman coins found in Japanese castle

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. "I couldn't believe they'd found coins from the Roman empire in Kasturen castle," Miyagi, who works at Okinawa International University, told CNN. "I thought that they were replicas that had been dropped there by tourists."

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Yet the ancient coins -- ten in total -- were only discovered recently when Toshio Tsukamoto, a researcher from Gangoji temple cultural properties department, spotted them when he traveled to the castle from Nara. The Uruma Board of Education announced their discovery Monday. I'd come to analyze artifacts like Japanese samurai armor that had been found there when I spotted the coins," Tsukamoto, told CNN.

"I'd been on excavation sites in Egypt and Italy and had seen a lot of Roman coins before, so I recognized them immediately." The coins were later submitted to Miyagi, who examined them using X-ray technology.

"You can see the engravings on the coins clearer when you use X-rays," Miyagi, told CNN. The archeologist found that the Ottoman coin had inscriptions that dated it to 1687, while the Roman coins appeared to be much older -- from at least 300 to 400 AD.

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Lomaster said:

Japanese Paleolithic hoax comes to mind.

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