African - Australian Connections
Talk History at 30,000 feet: The Big Picture
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1PossMan
This article from The Guardian describes a coin turning up in NE Australia (near Arnhem Land) which is possibly from what was Tanzania over 1000 years ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/12/it-could-change-everythin...
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/12/it-could-change-everythin...
2Bushwhacked
The story appears to be a bit of a beat up... as for the idea "it could change everything" ... well...
The most likely source of the coins would appear to be either a Dutch or Portuguese shipwreck. Dutch Batavia and Portuguese Timor lie just over the water, and there is a long documented history of Dutch East Indiaman wrecks on the Western Australian Coast. If you wanted to pitch a different scenario the idea that the coins may have arrived via Muslim traders probably isn't inconceivable.
Down here where I live at the other end of the Australian continent we even have our own local legend of a wrecked Portuguese caravel, The Mahogany Ship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahogany_Ship
The most likely source of the coins would appear to be either a Dutch or Portuguese shipwreck. Dutch Batavia and Portuguese Timor lie just over the water, and there is a long documented history of Dutch East Indiaman wrecks on the Western Australian Coast. If you wanted to pitch a different scenario the idea that the coins may have arrived via Muslim traders probably isn't inconceivable.
Down here where I live at the other end of the Australian continent we even have our own local legend of a wrecked Portuguese caravel, The Mahogany Ship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahogany_Ship
