600-year-old Chinese coin found in Kenya
A Chinese coin about 600 years old was recently unearthed on an
island just off the coast of Kenya. If it proves to be authentic, the
coin could show that the Chinese explorer Zheng He - like a Christopher
Columbus of the East - came to that part of east Africa.
“This finding is significant. We know Africa has always been
connected to the rest of the world, but this coin opens a discussion
about the relationship between China and Indian Ocean nations,”
archaeologist Chapurukha M. Kusimba of The Field Museum in Chicago said
in a statement.
The copper and silver disk has a square hole in the centre, possibly
to be worn on a belt. Kusimba told LiveScience it was found on the first
day of excavations at Manda, an island that hugs Kenya’s coast about 200
miles (320 kilometres) northeast of Mombasa.
A joint expedition, led by Kusimba and Sloan R. Williams of the
University of Illinois at Chicago, spent this past December through
February studying the site. The coin was issued from 1403 to 1425, and
bears the name of Emperor Yongle, leader of teh Ming Dynasty who started
building China’s Forbidden City. At that time, Manda was nearing the end
of its reign as a trading post. In 1430, the island was abandoned and
never inhabited again.
Kusimba believes the coin could prove the island was visited by Zheng
He, a court eunuch who rose to commander of the Chinese Navy. Emperor
Yongle sent Zheng He on several ambitious voyages to explore the lands
bordering the Indian Ocean and expand Chinese trade and political
influence. “Zheng He was, in many ways, the Christopher Columbus of
China,” Kusimba said. “It’s wonderful to have a coin that may ultimately
prove he came to Kenya.” The researchers got permission from the Kenyan
government to export the coin to Chicago, where it is undergoing
chemical analysis at The Field Museum.
“We just want to be sure that it’s an original government issue
rather than a counterfeit,” Kusimba told LiveScience. The team will head
back to Manda this coming December for another digging season; they plan
to publish their findings in a peer-reviewed academic journal. “This is
one of the oldest sites in Sub-Saharan Africa and I think it’s going to
inform us a lot about the early relationship Africa had with Europe and
Asia,” Kusimba said.
-LiveScience.com
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