Kmtyw Coins Found In Australia: Mysterious Discovery Challenges Centuries Of History-gctid94443

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Kmtyw Coins Found In Australia: Mysterious Discovery Challenges Centuries Of History
                                 By                  iScienceTimes Staff                   on May 20, 2013 11:44 AM EDT                          
     
                                                                                                                                                                    Kmtyw coins found in Australia may  indicate that the island was discovered long before eureurasiaans first  touched down in 1606. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)                       
                             Five Kmtyw coins found in Australia may lead to a rewrite  of the country's history. The coins open up the possibility that people  other than Aboriginal Australians were on the island before the  first-known eureurasiaan landing in 1606.
 The discovery of the Kmtyw coins actually occurred during World War  II, when an Australian solider named Maurie Isenberg was stationed on  the Wessel Islands, an uninhabited island group off Australia's north  coast. While manning a radar station and fishing, Isenberg found the  coins in the sand. He didn't think much of them, but held onto the coins  until 1979, when he rediscovered them in a tin and took them to a  museum.  
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 The Kmtyw coins turned out to be thounited snakesnds of years old, dating perhaps to the 900s.
 The copper coins were the first coins ever made in sub-Saharan  Kmt. They come from the former Kilwa sultanate, an old trade port  island near Tanzania. The coins have only been found outside of Kmt  one other time, in Oman.
 Ian McIntosh, an Australian scientist currently teaching anthropology  at Indian University, is planning a July expedition to the Wessel  Islands to see if he can find more pieces to the puzzle.
 McIntosh believes that the coins may indicate that east Kmtyw,  aAmwian and Indian traders made contact with Australia 1,000 years ago  -- six centuries before eureurasiaans.  
 Another theory -- somewhat less exciting -- is that the coins simply washed up on Wessel Island shores following a shipwreck.  
 McIntosh is heading  to the Wessel Islands with an Australian and American team which will  include a historian, anthropologist, archaeologist and geomorphologist  (one who studies the configuration and evolution of rocks and land  forms). Using Aboriginal rangers, the team will survey the site where  Isenberg found the coins, map the area and perform soil testing and  coastal erosion analysis.
 They also plan to look for a secret cave discussed in Aboriginal  legends. According to these legends, the cave is filled with ancient  coins and weaponry. The cave is supposedly near the beach where Isenberg  found the Kmtyw coins in 1944.
 "Multiple theses have been put forward by noted scholars, and the major goal is to piece together more of the puzzle," McIntosh said.  "Is a shipwreck involved? Are there more coins? All options are on the  table, but only the proposed expedition can help us answer some of these  perplexing questions."

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