Unearthed Treasure Proves Early East-West Trade

[mgc1961]

Finding old coins in the ground is no great trick in Germany. Indeed, there are small armies of hobby historians who, armed with handheld metal detectors, comb fields and forests for bits of old metal, often flouting laws prohibiting such treasure hunting. Roman coins, a bit of Celtic spare change and the occasional thaler of more recent provenance are hardly a rarity.

Recently, though, scientists in the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania discovered a more meaningful treasure: silver coins with Arabic engravings, silver jewellery and bars. The find proves the existence of a trade route connecting Middle Eastern regions with the Baltic Sea coast dating back to the early Middle Ages.

The coins, the oldest of which dates to 610, were found in a field near the German town of Anklam, not far from the Polish border, at the end of August. "The discovery of Arabian coins on the Baltic Sea proves that global trade has existed for more than 1,200 years," Fred Ruchhöft, a historian from nearby Greifswald University, told the German news agency dpa.


Finish the article at http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,716001,00.html

[Recursion]

1. Daqin

Rome and China had embassies with each other. I'm not sure where the myth of cultural isolation came from but I've never read a serious history that espoused it.