All  

Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ

Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ Mobile

Two of the ancient Kilwa coins.

Ancient African Coins Found in Australia Pose Interesting Questions About the Nation’s History

Print

According to Australia’s established history, European adventurers and explorers were the first foreigners to step foot on the continent – first Dutchman Willem Janszoon in 1606, and later Captain James Cook in 1770, who claimed the continent for Britain. But a series of unusual artifact discoveries over the last century may tell a different story.

Seventy years ago, when Australia was preparing for a potential Japanese invasion during WW2, a soldier patrolling the strategically important Wessel Islands off the north coast of Australia stumbled upon a handful of old coins. Too war-focused to pay attention to the odd-looking coins, he stored them in a tin, only to rediscover them some 35 years ago, at which point he handed them over to a museum. The history-changing artifacts languished in a museum drawer for two decades before their significance was finally realized.

Australian archaeologist Ian McIntosh, a professor of anthropology at Indiana University in the United States was stunned when he first saw the coins, as he immediately recognized their historical importance – the coins were minted by a lost Islamic civilization, commissioned by a sultanate of Kilwa near Tanzania, and are dated back as early as 900 AD. Could it have been Arabs, rather than Europeans, who first set foot on the far-away continent?

Kilwa sultanate coins. Credit: Powerhouse Museum

Kilwa sultanate coins. Credit: Powerhouse Museum

Now a UNESCO World Heritage site, Kilwa was once a thriving trade port and one of the most powerful settlements along the Swahili Coast. Trade in gold, ivory and slaves with the Arabian Peninsula, as well as India and China, influenced the growth and development of Kilwa, which reached its highest point in wealth and commerce between 13 th and 15 th centuries AD.

A 1572 depiction of the city of Kilwa from Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg's atlas ‘Civitates orbis terrarum’

A 1572 depiction of the city of Kilwa from Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg's atlas ‘Civitates orbis terrarum’ (public domain).

So how did the ancient east African coins find their way to a beach in northern Australia? Professor McIntosh suggests that the Kilwa coins were probably brought together as lucky charms or gifts for the natives or by sailors from Makassar in Indonesia, who obtained the coins through trade, and who set out in fleets to harvest sea cucumbers in the waters off northern Australia during the 1700s. However, a more controversial theory is that the coins were brought along in an Arab dhow ship.

“The suggestion that Arab traders and explorers might have passed this way so long ago might have been dismissed as fantasy until 1998, when the wreck of an Arab-style dhow was found off the Indonesian island of Belitung - puzzlingly far south of known Arabic-Chinese trade routes and complete with 60,000 items of gold, silver, ceramics and other produce made in Tang Dynasty China and lost during the return journey to Arabia,” reports The National. “The date of the wreck, confirmed by carbon dating, was indisputable: one bowl recovered bore the date of manufacture, July 16, 826AD.”

An Arab dhow

An Arab dhow (CC by SA 3.0)

The coins aren’t the only finding that has suggested Australia might need to rewrite its history books. While not as controversial, the discovery of a 16 th century Spanish swivel gun in Darwin, as well as the finding of a mysterious skull of a European male in New South Wales dating back to the 1600s, shows that the Dutch may not have been the first Europeans on Australian soil.

The skull of a European male dating to 1600s found in New South Wales. Credit: Daniel Cummins

The skull of a European male dating to 1600s found in New South Wales. Credit: Daniel Cummins

But fighting over dates and who was the very first to discover the lands seems rather inconsequential when you consider that the Aboriginals inhabited Australia for at least 65,000 years before Captain Cook’s arrival. But there is a bigger issue at stake here than just ‘who was the first?’.  Early discoveries of Australia were quietly scratched out of the school syllabus and many history books, as giving credit to the ‘colonizers’ was far more important. Similarly, new discoveries providing evidence of early foreign visits are quickly rejected or swept under the carpet. And this is a common pattern. We know for example, that Christopher Columbus was also not the first foreigner to step foot in the Americas.

What we learn at school and what is written in many history books is very often not produced with accuracy in mind, but rather has been written to serve a certain political agenda. 

Top image: Two of the ancient Kilwa coins. Courtesy Purdue University Indianapolis

By April Holloway

 

Comments

Charles Bowles's picture

AFRICAN COINS MINTED BY AFRICAN PEOPLE, AND UNDOUBTEDLY TRANSPORTED BY AFRICAN BUILT SHIPS IN EAST AFRICA.  THOSE COINS HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH CHINESE, INDONESIAN, OR ARABIC SOURCES.  BLACK AFRICANS WERE THE FIRST PEOPLE TO EXPLORE ALL THE CONTINENTS ON EARTH AND BECOME FOUNDERS OF THE VERY FIRST SETTLEMENTS TO ESTABLISH CIVILIZATIONS IN MANY DIFFERENT COUNTRIES…..THOUSANDS OF YEARS BEFORE WHITE EUROPEAN SETTLERS, THERE WERE THE BLACK ABORIGINES IN AUSSIE LAND, IN THE AMERICAS, THERE WERE THE BLACK OLMEC’S, IN THAILAND THERE WERE THE BLACK “MANI’S”, IN THE PHILIPPINES THERE WERE THE BLACK “ATE’S” (NEGRITOS), IN MALAYSIA THERE WERE THE “ORANG ASLI”, IN THE INDIAN ISLANDS OF NICOBAR AND ANDAMAN THERE ARE THE VERY DARK “JARAWAS”.   HOW DID THESE BLACKS ARRIVE IN ALL OF THESE FAR AWAY PLACES OUTSIDE OF AFRICA WITHOUT LARGE BOATS NEED TO BE ANSWERED….THOSE COINS ARE 100% AFRICAN, AND WERE TRANSFERRED TO AUSSIE LAND BY BLACK AFRICAN, AND NOT BY ARABS, CHINESE, OR INDONESIANS WHO LAGGED FAR BEHIND THE BOAT BUILDING MASTERY OF AFRICA'S BLACK RACE OF PEOPLE...

Charles Bowles

Charles Bowles's picture

EDWARD HANSON,  YOUR COMMENT IS VERY TRUE ABOUT HOW HISTORY IS WRITTEN, SORT OF LIKE WINNERS TAKE ALL THE CREDIT...WHILE THE LOSERS FIND THEIR HISTORIES EITHER TOTALLY REMOVED, OR HIGHLY QUESTIONABLE IN REGARDS TO THEIR PAST ABILITIES..

Charles Bowles

Indeed. It is the winners of any conflict who write the history books.

Charles Bowles's picture

FRUSTRATED GUILLAIUME,  I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOUR HISTORICAL OBSERVATION REGARDING THE FALLACIES OF EUROPEAN HISTORY AS IT RELATES TO THE WORLD..

Charles Bowles

All of European history has been written with a political agenda and is mostly slanted if not untrue..

aprilholloway's picture

April

April Holloway is a Co-Owner, Editor and Writer of Ancient Origins. For privacy reasons, she has previously written on Ancient Origins under the pen name April Holloway, but is now choosing to use her real name, Joanna Gillan.

Joanna... Read More

Next article