Another eleventh-century medieval Chinese coin found in England

A previous post discussed a find of a Northern Song dynasty Chinese coin from England whose context suggested that it may have been a genuine ancient loss from the medieval period, along with a variety of textual and archaeological evidence for contact between England and East Asia in the Middle Ages. The following post returns briefly to this question, noting the recent discovery of a second Northern Song dynasty coin from England. 

A copper-alloy Chinese coin of the Northern Song emperor Zhenzong, dated 1008–16, found near Petersfield, Hampshire (image: PAS).

The coin in question was issued between 1008 and 1016 during the reign of Emperor Zhenzong of the Northern Song dynasty and was found at Buriton, Hampshire, around 9 miles from the coast. As was the case with the other eleventh-century Chinese coin discussed here previously, the coin doesn't seem to be part of a 'suspicious' grouping of finds or deposited curated collection, and the field that it was recovered from has also produced a handful of medieval- and immediately post-medieval finds. These include a coin of King John minted at London in 1205–7, a medieval cut farthing of perhaps 1180–1247, two fragments of one or more medieval or early post-medieval vessels, and two mid-sixteenth-century coins. As such, it seems credible that this coin too could have been a medieval-era loss, and in this context it is worth noting that such Northern Song coins might quite credibly have arrived at any point up to perhaps the late fourteenth century, given that they continued to circulate in significant numbers well into that era. 

Looking more generally, the fact that we now have two, rather than one, eleventh-century Northern Song dynasty coins from England, both recovered from what seem to be medieval to early modern sites, adds weight to the case for considering them genuinely ancient losses. Interestingly, this find was also made only around 20 miles away from the only confirmed medieval imported Chinese pottery from England, a sherd of blue-and-white porcelain from a small cup or bowl that was found in a late fourteenth-century context at Lower Brook Street, Winchester. As to the wider context for these coins, the evidence for the presence of people who had, or who may have, travelled from East Asia in England during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was surveyed in the previous post, as was the evidence for people from Britain and Ireland in East Asia then. However, it is worth additionally drawing attention here to the 'global' distribution of medieval Chinese pottery and coins west of India, as mapped below, which demonstrates that finds of Chinese pottery and, to a lesser extent, coins outside of East Asia are by no means unknown.

With regard to the medieval Chinese pottery finds mapped below, substantial quantities have now been recognised from around the Indian Ocean coast and in both the Persian Gulf and Red Sea areas into northern Egypt. Archaeological finds of Chinese porcelain from Europe are much rarer, although definite examples are known from Winchester, Lucera (Italy) and Budapest (Hungary), along with a handful of surviving intact items that are believed to have entered Europe in the medieval era. The most famous of these are the so-called 'Marco Polo jar', a thirteenth- or fourteenth-century Chinese Qingbai porcelain jar found in the Treasury of San Marco in Venice, and the Gaignères-Fonthill vase, an early fourteenth-century Chinese Qingbai porcelain vase that was almost certainly present in Naples in the fifteenth century. In addition to these, there are a number of documentary references to Chinese pottery from medieval Europe. So, the 1323 will of Queen Maria of Naples and Sicily is believed to mention Chinese pottery, as does a 1363 inventory of property belonging to the Duke of Normandy and a 1379–80 inventory of Louis I, duke of Anjou. It also appears in, for example, a document from late fourteenth-century Genoa listing merchandise including porcelain, lustre ware and glass, and a 1456 inventory of the property of Piero di Cosimo de' Medici of Florence. As such, it seems clear that Chinese pottery was present in the households of the wealthiest people in Europe during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Turning to the medieval Chinese coins mapped below, these are recorded much less frequently as archaeological finds and do not appear in documents from Europe at all, although this latter is hardly surprising. The only other certain find from Europe is a find of a tenth-century coin from Bulgaria, although a scattering are also recorded from East Africa, the Persian Gulf, the coast of Arabia, India, and Sri Lanka, suggesting that it is not impossible that a handful of examples might have made their way to Red Sea or Persian Gulf ports and then into Europe.

The distribution of archaeological and textual evidence for the presence of medieval Chinese pottery (black open circles) and coins (blue dots) west of India, set against the maximum extent of the Mongol Empire in the late thirteenth century in red; the map is based on Whitehouse 1972, Cribb and Potts 1996, Vigano 2011, Vigano 2014, Zhao 2015, Meicun and Zhang 2017, Василев 2017 (image: Caitlin Green, drawn on a base map from Wikimedia Commons).

The content of this post and page, including any original illustrations, is Copyright © Caitlin R. Green, 2020, All Rights Reserved, and should not be used without permission.

A Middle Byzantine coin from Carbis Bay, Cornwall

The aim of the following brief note is simply to share a recent find of a late ninth- or early tenth-century Byzantine coin that was discovered amongst the rocks at low tide on Carbis Bay beach, Cornwall. Carbis Bay is part of the wider St Ives Bay, where several sites have produced finds of Early Byzantine material and there seems to have been a significant early medieval site at Phillack on the Hayle estuary. There are only a handful of Byzantine coins of this date found in Britain when compared to both earlier and later periods, so it is an interesting find, and may offer some further context for the interesting tenth-century description of Britain as 'an emporium (bārgāh) of Rūm' in the Persian Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam.

A copper-alloy Byzantine follis of Leo VI, dating from the late ninth or early tenth century, found at Carbis Bay, Cornwall (images: Jon Mann/PAS).

The coin in question is a copper-alloy follis of the Byzantine emperor Leo VI, dating 886–912 and minted at the imperial capital of Constantinople, which is reported to have been recovered from amongst the rocks at low tide on Carbis Bay beach, Cornwall. Jon Mann kindly communicated this discovery to me and the find circumstances, and I have subsequently passed it on to the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), where the coin is now recorded as CORN-9511B2.

Looking at the general find context of this coin, it is worth emphasising that this is not the only such discovery from the Cornish and Devonshire coast. For example, the PAS records a copper Byzantine pentanummium dating from around 527–641 that was found about 2 to 4 inches down in sand in a rock pool below mean high water at Perranporth and is obscured by fossil accretion from being in the sea, along with a silver denarius of Maximinus I (235–38) that was discovered in sand near rocks on the same beach. Likewise, on the south coast at Long Rock, near Penzance, an eleventh-century Anglo-Scandinavian stirrup mount was discovered buried in the sand, and at Otterton near Sidmouth, Devon, a Byzantine follis probably of Tiberius Constantine (578–82) was found on the beach below an early medieval fortified settlement.

Turning to the local context of the Carbis Bay coin, two points are worth emphasising. First, this is not the only Byzantine find from the immediate area. Carbis Bay is part of the wider St Ives Bay, and this area has produced Early Byzantine material from two or three separate sites: 

1. The important 'post-Roman' specialised industrial complex at Gwithian, at the eastern end of St Ives Bay. This has produced both North African and eastern Mediterranean late fifth- to sixth-century fine-wares, along with a substantial quantity of eastern Mediterranean transport amphorae.
2. The churchyard of Phillack church, on the dunes to the north of the Hayle Estuary's Copperhouse Pool. This site has produced fifth- and sixth-/seventh-century stone sculpture (a Chi-Rho stone and a memorial stone) and a rim-sherd of late fifth- or early sixth-century Phocaean Red Slip-Ware from what is now western Turkey, excavated from the churchyard in 1973. Furthermore, a significant quantity of mainly Late Roman coins have been discovered from a number of sites in Phillack in recent years, with this regionally unusual concentration of Late Roman non-hoarded coinage including coins from eastern Mediterranean mints such as Alexandria and Heraclea that are rarely represented amongst site-finds in Britain, suggesting that the links to the eastern Mediterranean began in the fourth century.
3. The early medieval settlement site at Hellesvean, St Ives. There are records of post-Roman Byzantine imports from this site, including 5 sherds of African Red Slip Ware from the Carthage region and a possible sherd from a Biii Mediterranean transport amphora.

In addition to this, it is worth noting that there is a credible case to be made for the local saint of St Ives, St Ia, being in fact the Byzantine St Ia who had a shrine by the Golden Gate at Constantinople and who appears in the famous late tenth-century Menologion of Basil II, rather than some otherwise-unknown Irish saint. Second, recent metal-detecting has revealed a significant amount of medieval activity near to Phillack, around 3 km from Carbis Bay, with some of the finds pointing both to sixth- to eleventh-century activity and long-distance contacts, including a Hiberno-Norse buckle of perhaps the tenth century, coins of tenth- and eleventh-century rulers of England, and an earlier Frankish or Anglo-Saxon brooch. 

The distribution of ninth- to twelfth-century Byzantine coins and seals in Britain, based on data from the PAS, the EMC, De Jersey 1996, Biddle 2012, Kelleher 2012 and Naylor 2010; click here for a larger version of this map. Note the two major concentrations of coins and seals shown on this map are Winchester and London, and coins nowadays considered to be modern losses are not included (image: Caitlin Green).

Finally, with respect to the national context, the Carbis Bay coin is one a number of Middle Byzantine coins now known from Britain, as mapped above. The major concentrations of these finds are centred on the two major Late Saxon cities of London and Winchester, but there are finds from other sites too, including two from the northern coast of south-western peninsula—a follis of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus dating to 913–19, minted at Constantinople, and a follis of Leo VI dated 886–912. These were found just inland from the coast, one in 2019 from a site that has produced other tenth- to eleventh-century material and which lies on a river crossing by the Late Saxon burh of Axbridge, and the second a decade or more earlier from a site just to the south of this one. In terms of the chronology of these coins within the Middle Byzantine period, the Carbis Bay coin of Leo VI is one of the earliest, but it doesn't stand alone. Aside from the two late ninth- to early tenth-century Byzantine coins from the Axbridge area noted above, there is also a follis of Basil I, dated 868–70 and minted at Constantinople, found just outside Winchester; two late tenth- or perhaps early eleventh-century coins from Winchester, one of which was recovered from an excavated context; another copper-alloy follis of the Byzantine emperor Leo VI (886–912), mint of Constantinople, found at Tarrant Launceston, Dorset; and a silver miliaresion of Nicephorus II Phocas, 963–69, found at Sporle, Norfolk. 

Although the meaning of these finds is open to debate, John Naylor has plausibly considered them to be ancient losses, something supported by the recent find from Axbridge and the excavated coin from Winchester. As such, the Carbis Bay coin and similar items may offer some further context for the interesting later tenth-century Persian description of Britain as 'an emporium (bārgāh) of Rūm', i.e. the Byzantine Empire, in the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam. Indeed, in this light it is interesting to note that not only do we have the evidence of these coins and the text of the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam, but there is also documentary evidence for the presence of a handful of Byzantine churchmen in tenth- to eleventh-century England and the Anglo-Saxon kings of this era seem, moreover, to have occasionally used the Byzantine title basileus for themselves.

The content of this post and page, including any original illustrations, is Copyright © Caitlin R. Green, 2020, All Rights Reserved, and should not be used without permission.

An eleventh-century Chinese coin in Britain and the evidence for East Asian contacts in the medieval period

This post is concerned with a rather curious and unique find of an eleventh-century Northern Song dynasty coin from China in Cheshire, looking first at its archaeological context before going on to explore the evidence for a degree of contact between people from East Asia and Britain in the medieval era, a topic that is of interest whatever the origins of this particular coin may be.

A Northern Song dynasty coin from China, minted during the Xining reign between 1068 and 1077, found in Cheshire; Click here for a larger version of this picture (image: PAS).

The coin in question was found in the Vale Royal area of Cheshire and has been identified by the British Museum as a cast copper alloy Chinese coin from the Northern Song dynasty (AD 960–1127), minted during the Xining reign period of Emperor Shenzong of Song between 1068 and 1077. Curiously, it appears to be a unique find from Britain—40 individual Chinese coins and one hoard are recorded on the Portable Antiquities Scheme, but only this eleventh-century example is of medieval date, with all of the other 146 Chinese coins being minted between the mid-seventeenth and early twentieth centuries. Needless to say, this coin has consequently been the subject of an understandable degree of scepticism, with the PAS record suggesting that it is 'doubtful that this is a genuine medieval find... more likely a more recent loss from an curated collection'. The aim of the following post is simply to ask whether it is at all possible that such a coin might have arrived in Britain during the medieval era, and, in doing so, review the evidence for contacts between East Asia and Britain in that period whatever our conclusion on this coin may be.

Looking first at the coin itself, recent losses or deliberate modern depositions of exotic finds are certainly encountered in Britain, including a group of 107 Chinese coins dated 1659 to 1850 found buried together at Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria; another group of four coins from Foxhall, Suffolk; and a lovely Sasanian carnelian finger ring from East Sussex that was found with an odd collection of material of various dates including a modern replica of a Byzantine coin. Nonetheless, although the possibility of a loss from a curated collection certainly cannot be discounted, it can be perhaps overused as an explanation for 'surprising' finds—as Martin Biddle has observed, 'the proverbial absent-minded college don or cathedral canon, dropping items of his collection here, there and everywhere... has never seemed a very convincing character', and in recent years the hyper-scepticism over finds of at least some exotic coins in Britain has abated somewhat.(1) Given the above, it is worth looking at the local context of this medieval Chinese coin, to assess whether there are any positive reasons to believe it is part of such a 'suspicious' grouping of finds or deposited curated collection. The coin itself is one of a discrete group of 24 finds found in an area less than 100 metres in all directions from the findspot, and aside from the coin being considered here, none of these other finds appear especially 'suspicious' or exotic. They consist of two worn Roman coins (a common find across England, with 263,791 recorded on the PAS as of March 2018); two late medieval lead weights, two pieces of medieval copper-alloy casting waste, and two medieval or post-medieval weights; and fifteen post-medieval finds, dating from the sixteenth to early eighteenth centuries and ranging from coins of Elizabeth I to rings, trade weights and musket balls. All told, the post-Roman finds from the site suggest relatively unremarkable activity on the site from c. 1300 to c. 1750, with nothing else found that might hint at a deliberate exotic deposition or loss from a curated collection.

Looking more widely at the context of such a coin, whilst no other medieval Chinese coins are known from Britain, this find would not stand entirely alone as a medieval-era East Asian import to these islands if it is genuine, with two British sites having apparently produced such items from stratified contexts. One of these medieval imports is a sherd of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain from a small cup or bowl that was found in a late fourteenth-century context at Lower Brook Street, Winchester. The other import is a small piece of bronze with the character 藤 engraved upon it, possibly representing the name 藤原, Fujiwara, apparently found in a context of c. 1300 in the north bank of the Thames at London.(2) Of course, both finds are markedly later in date than the apparently eleventh-century coin found in Cheshire, as are the other finds from the site where the coin was discovered (c. 1300–1750) and, indeed, the other non-textile East Asian imports known from elsewhere in medieval Europe, such as the fragments of a small Chinese qingbai bowl that were recovered from a late thirteenth-century context in the medieval castle at Lucera, Italy.(3) However, this chronological difference is perhaps not such a major problem as might be assumed. Northern Song coins appear to have been minted in exceptional quantities and to have remained in circulation long after their initial minting date, so that in the fourteenth century around 88% of the coins both in circulation within China and exported outside of it seem to have been actually minted under the Northern Song dynasty (960–1126). As such, if the Northern Song coin from Cheshire is a genuine medieval import then it might quite credibly have arrived at any point up to perhaps the late fourteenth century, resolving the above issue.(4)

The Mongol Empire at its greatest extent in the late thirteenth century (image: Wikimedia Commons).

Such a potential thirteenth or fourteenth-century context for the arrival of an eleventh-century Chinese coin in Britain is not only supported by the archaeological evidence, but also by documentary sources. These texts make reference to both the presence of people from Britain and Ireland in East Asia and the presence of people who have, or may have, travelled from these regions in Britain during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. For example, the Flemish Franciscan missionary and explorer William of Rubruck (d. c. 1293) encountered a man of English origin whilst visiting Mongolia in 1254 AD. The man in question, named Basil, was living at Karakorum (near Kharkhorin, Mongolia), the capital of the Mongol Empire between 1235 and 1260, and is described as 'the son of an Englishman'; he is also probably the 'nephew of a bishop' that William later mentions that he met at Karakorum and who he states was captured by the Mongols at Belgrade.(5) Moreover, Basil is not the only Englishman known to have been living among the Mongols during the mid-thirteenth century. Ivo of Narbonne, for example, reported in a letter copied by Matthew Paris in his Chronica Majora that the 'prince of Dalmatia' captured eight fugitives in 1242 during the surprise withdrawal of the Mongols from Central Europe, just as they were at the gates of Vienna, and that these captives included 'an Englishman' who

had twice come as an envoy and interpreter from the king of Tattars to the king of Hungary, and plainly threatened and warned them of the evils which afterwards happened, unless he should give up himself and his kingdom to be subject to the Tattars.(6)

This English envoy of the Mongols (Tatars/'Tartars') was apparently an exile from England who had lost all he owned to gambling at Acre, Israel, and then wandered 'in a shameful state of want' further east into modern Iraq and beyond before the Mongols persuaded him to join them due to his apparent skill with languages, at which point he then travelled with them until he returned to Europe and was finally captured in Austria. Given that he had clearly travelled huge distances with the Mongols and, most especially, his role as envoy and interpreter for the Mongol khan, it seems possible that he was an earlier English visitor than Basil to the Mongol capital of Karakorum, Mongolia.

A detail from Andrea di Bonaiuto's fresco 'The Way of Salvation/The Church Militant and the Church Triumphant', c. 1365–8, with the figures at the centre identified by Jacques Paviot as an English knight of the Garter talking to a Mongol (Paviot, 2000, p. 318; Delvin, 1929); the fresco is located in the Spanish Chapel at Santa Maria Novella, Florence. Click here for a larger version of this image (image: Wikimedia Commons).

In addition to individual English people who were living amongst the Mongols on their own account or as slaves in the thirteenth century, there were also direct diplomatic contacts between Mongol rulers and the English then. Of particular note is the evidence for unidentified Mongol envoys ('Tartars') actually crossing the Channel to visit England in 1264, much to the apparent disgruntlement of the papal legate Guy Foulques—the future Pope Clement IV—who waiting in Boulogne for his own authorisation to cross!(7) Likewise, in 1287–8 the Turkic/Chinese Christian monk and diplomat Rabban Bar Sauma, originally from Beijing, China, visited Europe as an emissary of the Mongol Ilkhanate that stretched from Iraq to northern Afghanistan and met with King Edward I of England in Gascony:

And they went forth from that place, that is to say, from Paris, to go to the king of England, to Kasonia [Gascony]. And having arrived in twenty days at their city [Saint-Sever], the inhabitants of the city went forth to meet them, and they asked them, "Who are you?"And Rabban Sauma and his companions replied, "We are ambassadors, and we have come from beyond the eastern seas, and we are envoys of the King, and of the Patriarch, and the Kings of the Mongols."And the people made haste and went to the king and informed him [of their arrival], and the king welcomed them gladly, and the people introduced them into his presence. And those who were with Rabban Sauma straightway gave to the king the Pukdana [i.e. letter of authorisation] of King Arghun, and the gifts which he had sent to him, and the Letter of Mar Catholicus. And [King Edward] rejoiced greatly, and he was especially glad when Rabban Sauma talked about the matter of Jerusalem. And he said, "We the kings of these cities bear upon our bodies the sign of the Cross, and we have no subject of thought except this matter. And my mind is relieved on the subject about which I have been thinking, when I hear that King Arghun thinks as I think."And the king commanded Rabban Sauma to celebrate the Eucharist, and he performed the Glorious Mysteries; and the king and his officers of state stood up, and the king partook of the Sacrament, and made a great feast that day. 

Then Rabban Sauma said to the king, "We beseech you, O king, to give [your servants] in order to show us whatever churches and shrines there are in this country, so that when we go back to the Children of the East we may give them descriptions of them."And the king replied, "Thus shall you say to King Arghun and to all the Orientals: We have seen a thing than which there is nothing more wonderful, that is to say, that in the countries of the Franks there are not two Confessions of Faith, but only one Confession of Faith, namely, that which confesses Jesus Christ; and all the Christians confess it."And King Edward gave us many gifts and money for the expenses of the road.(8)

The route taken by Rabban Bar Sauma during his journey from Beijing to Gascony in the 1280s (image: Wikimedia Commons).

Yet another Mongol envoy named Buscarello de Ghizolfi, a Genoese adventurer who had settled in Persia, visited London in January 1290, accompanied by three squires who were probably themselves Mongols. Further envoys were sent from the Mongol Ilkhanate later that year, including a Mongol named Zagan and his nephew Gorgi, who were baptized by the Pope before being sent on to England on 2 December 1290 (accompanied again by Buscarello de Ghizolfi), and a certain Saabedin Archaon—a Nestorian cleric who had previously travelled to the west with Rabban Bar Sauma—who arrived after Zagan had left for England and who was, in turn, sent on with letters of credence in his favour addressed to Edward I by Pope Nicholas IV on 31 December.(9) Envoys were also dispatched in the opposite direction, with the regime at Acre sending the English Dominican friar David of Ashby eastwards in 1260 (he returned in 1274, accompanying the Mongol embassy that attended the Second Council of Lyon in that year) and King Edward I sending Geoffrey of Langley with Buscarello de Ghizolfi to the Mongol Ilkhanate capital of Tabriz, Iran, on a diplomatic mission in 1291.

In the early fourteenth century there is further evidence for direct diplomatic contact with both the Mongols and potentially China, which had been partly under Mongol control in the north since the first half of the thirteenth century and was ruled from 1271 by the Yuan Dynasty of China, founded by the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan. For example, in 1313 the royal household records for Edward II record a visit to England by an ambassador of 'the emperor of the Tartars', who Jacques Paviot suggests may have been representing the Great Khan in China, something perhaps supported by the fact that he was one William of Villeneuve.(10) This Franciscan missionary was one of seven suffragan bishops consecrated by Pope Clement V in 1307 to serve in the newly created archdiocese of Beijing, China (Khanbaliq), at the request of John of Montecorvino, the founder of the Chinese mission in the late thirteenth century. William is usually believed to have made it to India but to have then given up and not carried on to China with the others, instead returning to Italy, being next recorded at Avignon, France, in 1318.(11) However, this seems not to take account of the English record of his activities, which suggests that he returned to Europe as a Mongol envoy of 'the emperor of the Tartars' in 1313. Moreover, it is worth noting that Edward II sent a letter to the Emperor of China on 22 May 1313 in which he asks him to him to aid and protect the bishop William of Villeneuve, something that suggests that not only did William returned to Europe in 1313 as an envoy of the Great Khan in China, but also that he then aimed to return there.(12)

A fifteenth-century image of James of Ireland and Odoric of Pordenone in Sumatra, from BnF Français 2810, f.104r; click here for a larger version of this illustration (image: BnF).

In addition to the above, notice should also be made of the journey of James of Ireland, a cleric who travelled with Odoric of Pordenone to the east in the 1320s. Odoric's own account of the journey, written in 1330 after their return to Europe, indicates that they visited India, Sumatra, Java, and Champa (southern Vietnam), before arriving at Guangzhou, China, in 1323–4 and reaching Beijing in 1325, where they stayed for 3 years before travelling back home; Odoric died in 1331 at Udine, north-eastern Italy, and a present of 2 marks was subsequently paid to his companion, James of Ireland, according to the public books of Udine, who unfortunately then disappears from the pages of history.(13) Whether other subjects of the English king undertook similar journeys eastwards to Southeast Asia and China in the later thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is unrecorded, but it is by no means implausible that they did so. Certainly, we know of a number of European merchants who travelled to China at this time, from Marco Polo and Peter of Lucalongo in the late thirteenth century onwards, and there seem to have been communities of Genoese and Venetian merchants living in Yuan China during the fourteenth century, with Latin tombstones moreover known from Yangzhou and Zaiton (Quanzhou) in China. In this light, it is interesting to note that late medieval English coins have apparently been found in Vietnam.(14)

In conclusion, it may well be that this apparently eleventh-century Chinese coin from Cheshire is a modern loss from a curated collection, for example. However, given the lack of other 'exotic' items from the site where it was found, the possibility that it was actually a genuine medieval loss can perhaps be at least considered. Certainly, coins like this seem to have continued to circulate in significant numbers in China well into the fourteenth century, and in this light it is interesting that the other, largely unremarkable, post-Roman artefacts found at the site range in date from c. 1300–1750. Likewise, it is worth noting that there is, in fact, a small quantity of archaeological evidence for East Asian imports into thirteenth-/fourteenth-century England and, perhaps more importantly, a significant quantity of documentary evidence referring to both the presence of people from Britain and Ireland in East Asia and the presence of people who had, or who may have, travelled from these regions in England during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In consequence, a potential context can be constructed for such a coin having arrived in England in c. 1300 or a little after, although this is—of course—not the same thing as saying that such an origin is by any means certain, especially whilst this coin remains a unique find in Britain.

The tombstone of Katerina Ilioni, daughter of the Genoese merchant Domenico Ilioni, dated 1342 and found at Yangzhou, China; click here for a larger version of this image (image: Wikimedia Commons).

Notes

1.     See, for example, M. Biddle, 'Ptolemaic coins from Winchester', Antiquity, 49 (1975), 213–15; S. Moorhead, 'Early Byzantine copper coins found in Britain – a review in light of new finds recorded with the Portable Antiquities Scheme', in O. Tekin (ed.), Ancient History, Numismatics and Epigraphy in the Mediterranean World (Istanbul, 2009), pp. 263–74; E. S. Georganteli, 'Byzantine coins', in M. Biddle (ed.), The Winchester Mint and Coins and Related Finds from the Excavations of 1961-71, Winchester Studies 8 (Oxford, 2012), pp. 669–78; and C. Morrisson, 'Byzantine coins in early medieval Britain: a Byzantinist's assessment', in R. Naismith et al (ed.), Early Medieval Monetary History: Studies in Memory of Mark Blackburn (London, 2014), pp. 207–42.
2.     D. Whitehouse, 'Chinese porcelain in medieval Europe', Medieval Archaeology, 16 (1972), 63–78 at p. 68; P. Ottaway, Winchester: Swithun’s ‘City of Happiness and Good Fortune’: An Archaeological Assessment (Oxford, 2017), online; M. Cooper, 'Cultural survey, 1991', Monumenta Nipponica, 47 (1992), 99–105 at p. 100. My thanks are due to Andrew West for drawing my attention to the London find.
3.     D. Whitehouse, 'Chinese porcelain in medieval Europe', Medieval Archaeology, 16 (1972), 63–78 at pp. 67–8.
4.     On the long life of Northern Song coins and their medieval export to Western Asia and East Africa, see J. Cribb & D. Potts, 'Chinese coin finds from Arabia and the Arabian Gulf', Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, 7 (1996), 108–18. Note, both coins and pottery seem to have been exported westwards from China in the medieval period, see for example Bing Zhao, 'Chinese-style ceramics in East Africa from the 9th to 16th century: A case of changing values ​​and symbols in the multi-partner global trade', Afriques, 6 (2015), online at http://journals.openedition.org/afriques/1836.
5.     W. W. Rockhill (trans.), The Journey of William of Rubruck to the Eastern Parts of the World, 1253–55 (London, 1900), pp. 211, 222–3.
6.     J. A. Giles (trans.), Matthew Paris's English History (London, 1889), vol. 1, pp. 470–1.
7.     J. Paviot, 'England and the Mongols (c. 1260–1330)', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 10 (2000), 305–18 at p. 308.
8.     E. A. Wallis Budge (trans.), The Monks of Kublai Khan, Emperor of China; or, The History of the Life and Travels of Rabban Sawma (London, 1928), pp. 185–7, spelling slightly modernised and adjusted for consistency.
9.     J. Paviot, 'England and the Mongols (c. 1260–1330)', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 10 (2000), 305–18 at pp. 314–5. The letters carried by Zagan and Saabedin are in the National Archives as SC 7/30/18 ('Commendation to Edward I of Andrew formerly called Zaganus, Buscarellus de Gisulfo and Moracius, envoys of Argon, king of the Tartars', 2 Dec 1290) and SC 7/31/16 ('Letters of credence to Edward I in favour of Saabedin Archaon, envoy of Argon, king of the Tartars', 31 Dec 1290); see also P. Jackson, The Mongols and the West 1221–1410 (London, 2005), p. 173, on Saabedin.
10.     J. Paviot, 'England and the Mongols (c. 1260–1330)', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 10 (2000), 305–18 at p. 317; for the view that he was sent by the Middle Eastern Mongol il-khan, see for example J. R. S. Phillips, The Medieval Expansion of Europe, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1998), p. 129.
11.     J. B. Friedman & K. M. Figg (eds.), Trade, Travel, and Exploration in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia (London, 2000), pp. 22, 402, 403.
12.     T. Rymer (ed.), Foedera, Conventiones, Literæ, et Cujuscunque Generis Acta Publica, Inter Reges Angliæ et Alios Quosvis Imperatores, Reges, Pontifices, Principes, vel Communitates (London, 1739), vol. 2 pt. 1, p. 40 (22 May 1313), which is also discussed in K. Warner, Edward II: The Unconventional King (Stroud, 2014). Edward II also sent letters asking for aid to be given to William of Villeneuve to the emperor of Trebizond (Alexios II), the king of Georgia (Davit VIII), and the il-khan Oljeitu, suggesting the route that William of Villeneuve was intending on taking; a similar route was followed by Odoric of Pordenone in 1318, as related in his The Eastern Parts of the World Described (1330).
13.     Odoric of Pordenone, The Eastern Parts of the World Described, translated by H. Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither (London, 1913), vol. 2, pp. 97–267, and p. 11 for the gift to James of Ireland; J. B. Friedman & K. M. Figg (eds.), Trade, Travel, and Exploration in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia (London, 2000), p. 457.
14.     J. B. Friedman & K. M. Figg (eds.), Trade, Travel, and Exploration in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia (London, 2000), pp. 107–09, 372–4, 474, 663; L. Arnold, Princely Gifts & Papal Treasures: The Franciscan Mission to China & Its Influence on the Art of the West, 1250–1350 (San Francisco, 1999); J. Purtle, 'The Far Side: expatriate medieval art and its languages in Sino-Mongol China', in J. Caskey et al (eds.), Confronting the Borders of Medieval Art (Leiden, 2011), pp. 167–97; and J. Kermode, Medieval Merchants: York, Beverley and Hull in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 2–3 at fn. 10 for the claim that late medieval English coins have been found in Vietnam.

The content of this post and page, including any original illustrations, is Copyright © Caitlin R. Green, 2018, All Rights Reserved, and should not be used without permission.

Wulfric of Lincoln and the English Varangians: the first documented Byzantine ambassador to England in the early twelfth century

The following brief post is concerned with an early twelfth-century Byzantine ambassador to England who had the intriguing name of Wlfricus—or Wulfric—of Lincoln. Needless to say, this is a most interesting name for the first documented medieval ambassador from Constantinople to England to bear, and what follows looks briefly at what little we know of this embassy and its context.

A contemporary imitation of a coin of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenus (1081–1118), mint of Constantinople, found at South Shields, Tyne and Wear. Click here for a larger version of this photograph. Note, an imperial seal of Alexios I Komnenus has been also been found in England, just a few miles to the north-west of Lincoln at Torksey (image: PAS).

The sole reference to Wulfric of Lincoln and his early twelfth-century embassy on behalf of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenus is found in The History of the Church of Abingdon, a twelfth-century history thought to have been written by a monk of Abingdon Abbey who was apparently a contemporary of Abbot Faritius of Abingdon (d. 1117), with the text reaching its final form in the 1160s. He gives the following account of the embassy of Wulfric of Lincoln to England and Wulfric's subsequent visit to Abingdon and gift of a relic of St John Chrysostom to Abbot Faritius in the early twelfth century:

It is worthwhile, moreover, to record briefly how he obtained that very sacred arm [of St John Chrysostom]. Emperor Alexius of Constantinople at that time sent to England letters and gifts for King Henry and Queen Matilda. In that embassy, Wulfric, an Englishman by birth, native of the town of Lincoln, performed with great pomp, as befitted the guide of such dignity [i.e. the relic]. He was very bold in his close relations with that emperor, and sought and received from him these relics of the blessed John, with a view to the uplifting of his homeland. He went to Abingdon to commend himself to the brethren's prayers, and there most devoutly deposited these relics, together with the dust which is said to have marvellously burst forth from the tomb of St John the Evangelist, and a part of the bones of Macarius and Anthony the abbots. The abbot, moreover, received this and enshrined it fittingly in the way customary with him.(1)

Unfortunately, we are unable to date the event any closer than c. 1100–1117, but it seems likely that the gifts sent by Emperor Alexios to King Henry I and Queen Matilda included a piece of the True Cross that was subsequently kept at Henry I's foundation of Reading, as it was said to be kept 'in a cloth that the emperor of Constantinople sent to Henry the first, king of the English', and another piece given by Queen Matilda to her foundation of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, which was likewise said to have been given by the emperor Alexios.(2)

Needless to say, the fact that the first documented ambassador from the imperial capital of Constantinople to England was stated to be a native of Lincoln and bore the Old English name Wulfric is most intriguing. Given the date of the embassy and the name and origins of the ambassador, it is hard to avoid connecting this curious situation with the evidence for a significant Anglo-Saxon emigration from England to the Byzantine Empire in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest (occurring  c. 1075), discussed at length in a previous post, or the fact that a substantial proportion of the imperial Varangian Guard—the personal bodyguard of the Byzantine emperor—at Constantinople subsequently appears to be of English origin right through the twelfth century and up until the siege of Constantinople in 1204, if not beyond.(3) Indeed, as late as the mid-fourteenth-century, the De Officiis of Pseudo-Kodinus related that the Varangians who existed then still constituted a separate people and that, at Christmas, they wished the emperor length of life 'in their native tongue, that is, English'.(4)

A gold coin of the Byzantine emperor Michael VII Doukas (1071–8), in whose reign the English Varangians are thought to have arrived in Constantinople, found at Hambleton, North Yorkshire; the coin has been pierced for suspension and the placing of the hole implies that it was intended to be worn displaying the image of the emperor. Click here for a larger version of this photograph (image: PAS).

In light of all this, Wulfric of Lincoln would certainly seem to have a credible context within the Constantinople of c. 1100. Moreover, he wouldn't be the only such post-1066 Anglo-Saxon emigrant who took on important imperial duties in this period. For example, the 'Advices to the Emperor' in Kekaumenos's Strategikon, which was written in the late 1070s and then revised up to c. 1100, complains of the emperor favouring 'the foreigner who has come to us from England' and 'making him head of a department of state or general'.(5) Likewise, the account of a visit to Constantinople in c. 1090 by a monk named Joseph from Canterbury who encountered 'men from his own homeland (patria) and his own friends, who were part of the emperor’s household (ex familia imperatoris)'(6), is clearly noteworthy, as is Goscelin of Canterbury's (d. c. 1100) contemporary reference to an unnamed 'honourable man' from England who,

along with many noble exiles from the fatherland, migrated to Constantinople; he obtained such favour with the Emperor and Empress as well as with other powerful men as to receive command over prominent troops and over a great number of companions... He married a noble and wealthy woman, and remembering the gifts of God, built, close to his own home, a basilica in honour of the Blessed Nicholas and Saint Augustine, his patron.(7)

Finally, mention ought to be made of Hardigt, who is said to have been a member of the 'Oriental Angli' who was made both chief of the Varangian Guard and commander of the imperial fleet in the Laon Chronicle's thirteenth-century account of the Anglo-Saxon emigrants:

the Oriental Angli sent a man called Hardigt to the Emperor. He was reputed to be the strongest of all the Angli, for which reason he was suspect to the Greeks, who cunningly let loose a lion to devour him. Hardigt was alone in the courtyard of the palace. But he ran to the marble columns that stood in the atrium of the palace to use them as protection against the lion. Then (by a series of adroit manoeuvres) he succeeded in braining the lion by bashing its head on a column. This Hardigt of the race of the Angli was later wrongfully accused of treason by two Greeks, but he defended his innocence against them in a flight on foot, brave though they were. One of them he forced to the ground with his arm severed from his side; the other he fell upon and split him in two from his chest. The Emperor appointed this man leader of all his guards and not long afterwards made him commander of the naval forces.(8)

This specific element of the Laon Chronicle's account has been subject to some scepticism, but it is worth noting that Krijnie Ciggaar considers Hardigt to be a potentially genuine English emigrant who perhaps gained these roles in the later 1080s and 1090s, and Nancy Ševčenko furthermore observes that the seemingly slightly fanciful detail of the lions is arguably supported by a subsequent release of both lions and leopards to attack Lombard Crusaders camped outside the walls of Constantinople in 1101.(9) In any case, even setting Hardigt to one side, it seems clear that Wulfric of Lincoln's role as the Byzantine Emperor's ambassador to Norman England not only has a context in terms of the arrival of Anglo-Saxon emigrants in the Byzantine Empire after c. 1075, but also in the evidence for a number of these English exiles apparently fairly rapidly attaining important positions within the imperial household and the wider Byzantine state during the late eleventh century.

The distribution of eleventh- to twelfth-century Byzantine coins and seals in Britain, based on data from the PAS, the EMC, De Jersey 1996, Biddle 2012 and Kelleher 2012; click here for a larger version of this map. Note the two major concentrations of coins and seals shown on this map represent the finds from Winchester and London (image: C. R. Green).

Notes

1.     J. Hudson (ed. & trans.), Historia Ecclesie Abbendonensis: The History of the Church of Abingdon, Volume II (Oxford, 2002), p. 69.
2.     R. Bartlett, England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings: 1075–1225 (Oxford, 2000), pp. 108–09.
3.     See, for example, K. N. Ciggaar, 'L'émigration anglaise à Byzance après 1066. Un nouveau texte en latin sur les Varangues à Constantinople', Revue des études byzantines Année, 32 (1974), 301–42; C. Fell, 'The Icelandic saga of Edward the Confessor: its version of the Anglo-Saxon emigration to Byzantium', Anglo-Saxon England, 3 (1974), 179–96; J. Shepard, 'The English and Byzantium: a study of their role in the Byzantine army in the later eleventh century', Traditio, 29 (1973), 53–92; J. Godfrey, 'The defeated Anglo-Saxons take service with the Byzantine Emperor', Anglo-Norman Studies, 1 (1979), 63–74; K. N. Ciggaar, Western Travellers to Constantinople: The West and Byzantium, 962–1204 (Leiden, 1996), pp. 140–1, 144, 146, 158–9. The connection between Wulfric of Lincoln and the English Varangians was first made by E. A. Freeman in his History of the Norman Conquest of England, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1876), vol. 4, pp. 847–8.
4.     S. Blöndal & B. S. Benedikz, The Varangians of Byzantium (Cambridge, 1978), p. 180; J. Shepard, 'Another New England? — Anglo-Saxon settlement on the Black Sea', Byzantine Studies, 1 (1978), 18–39 at p. 39; D. M. Nicol, 'Byzantium and England', Balkan Studies, 15 (1974), 179–203 at p. 192.
5.     C. Fell, 'The Icelandic saga of Edward the Confessor: its version of the Anglo-Saxon emigration to Byzantium', Anglo-Saxon England, 3 (1974), 179–96 at p. 193; A. Shchavelev, 'A seal of Byzantine "Translator of the English" Patrikios Sphen: its date and socio-cultural context', in H. Ivakin et al (eds.), Byzantine and Rus' Seals (Kyiv, 2015), pp. 193–200 at pp. 196–8; J. Shepard, 'The English and Byzantium: a study of their role in the Byzantine army in the later eleventh century', Traditio, 29 (1973), 53–92 at p. 64.
6.     C. West, 'Constantinople, Jerusalem and Canterbury: Joseph the monk and the Norman Conquest', blog post, 18 September 2017, online at http://turbulentpriests.group.shef.ac.uk/constantinople-jerusalem-and-canterbury-joseph-the-monk-and-the-norman-conquest/; J. Shepard, 'The English and Byzantium: a study of their role in the Byzantine army in the later eleventh century', Traditio, 29 (1973), 53–92 at p. 91.
7.     Translated in D. M. Nicol, 'Byzantium and England', Balkan Studies, 15 (1974), 179–203 at p. 190. His name may have been Coleman, as the thirteenth-century Laon Chronicle account of the Anglo-Saxon emigrants mentions a man of that name who built a church in Constantinople; the church in question is often thought to be that of Bogdan Serai, especially in light of the apparent survival of grave-markers belonging to English Varangians there until the nineteenth century: K. N. Ciggaar, 'L'émigration anglaise à Byzance après 1066. Un nouveau texte en latin sur les Varangues à Constantinople', Revue des études byzantines Année, 32 (1974), 301–42 at pp. 313 and 328; C. Fell, 'The Icelandic saga of Edward the Confessor: its version of the Anglo-Saxon emigration to Byzantium', Anglo-Saxon England, 3 (1974), 179–96 at p. 196; R. Byron, The Byzantine Achievement (London, 1929), p. 147 fn. 1.
8.     D. M. Nicol, 'Byzantium and England', Balkan Studies, 15 (1974), 179–203 at p. 187 (translation); K. N. Ciggaar, 'L'émigration anglaise à Byzance après 1066. Un nouveau texte en latin sur les Varangues à Constantinople', Revue des études byzantines Année, 32 (1974), 301–42 at pp. 305, 323 (text, lines 95–109) and 337–8 (commentary).
9.     K. N. Ciggaar, 'L'émigration anglaise à Byzance après 1066. Un nouveau texte en latin sur les Varangues à Constantinople', Revue des études byzantines Année, 32 (1974), 301–42 at pp. 305 and 337–8; K. N. Ciggaar, Western Travellers to Constantinople: The West and Byzantium, 962–1204 (Leiden, 1996), p. 141; N. P. Ševčenko, 'Wild animals in the Byzantine park', in A. Littlewood et al (eds.), Byzantine Garden Culture (Washington, D. C., 2002), pp. 69–86 at p. 79. For a contrasting view, see C. Fell, 'The Icelandic saga of Edward the Confessor: its version of the Anglo-Saxon emigration to Byzantium', Anglo-Saxon England, 3 (1974), 179–96 at pp. 186–8, who considers him to be a mistaken insertion of the deeds of Harald Hardrada into the Laon Chronicle's account of the Anglo-Saxon emigrants.

The content of this post and page, including any original illustrations, is Copyright © Caitlin R. Green, 2018, All Rights Reserved, and should not be used without permission.

Sasanian finds in early medieval Britain and beyond: another global distribution from Late Antiquity?

A previous post mapped and discussed the spread of early Byzantine finds across both Eurasia and Africa, ranging from Britain to Japan and Sweden to Tanzania. The following one expands upon this by turning to look at the global distribution of finds from the fifth- to seventh-century Sasanian Empire, the early Byzantine Empire's eastern neighbour and rival, starting with an examination of Sasanian coins found in Britain. This Late Antique empire, with its capital at Ctesiphon near to modern Baghdad, controlled an extensive area stretching from Iraq in the west to Pakistan in the east, and items produced within this territory are once again found spread across both Eurasia and Africa. Needless to say, the extensive distribution of Late Sasanian material shown here is of interest for a number of reasons from the perspective of this blog, not least the light that it sheds on trade and movement in this era and Britain's place within the wider global community.

Distribution of Sasanian finds of the fifth to seventh centuries AD found outside of the boundaries of the late sixth-century Sasanian Empire, along with a depiction of the empire during the late sixth century. For a larger version of this map, click here. Note, the map is based on the sources listed in fn. 1 and is not exhaustive; rather, it is intended to offer an impression of the wide distribution of fifth- to seventh-century Sasanian objects across Eurasia and Africa. Image: C. R. Green.

Britain and the west

The degree to which the Sasanian Empire was aware of the existence of Britain is uncertain: whilst an inscription of the third century AD refers to Spain and a number of other provinces of the Roman Empire, the earliest surviving reference to Britain from this region belongs to the ninth century AD, as was discussed in a previous post. Nonetheless, in recent years a number of Late Sasanian coins have been recorded from this island that sixth-century authors described as lying 'virtually at the end of the world towards the west and north-west' (Gildas, De Excidio Britanniae, §3, c. AD 500–540). Two of these coins have been published and discussed in print previously:

• A Sasanian coin of Khosrow I, minted in AD 565/6 at Susa in modern Iran and found at Winchelsea, East Sussex, in 1930.(2)
• A Sasanian coin of Khosrow II, minted in c. AD 628 at Weh-Andiyok-Shapur (Gundeshapur, Iran) and found on the coast of the Island of Anglesey, Wales, in 2001.(3)

A further four Late Sasanian coins can now be added to this list that were either missed in the original catalogue or discovered after it was published:

• A seventh-century Sasanian coin, presumably of Khosrow II (590–628), found at Beverley, East Yorkshire, in 1982.(4)
• A sixth- or seventh-century Sasanian coin found at Barford, Warwickshire, in 1994.(5)
• A Sasanian coin of Khosrow II, 590–628, minted at Ram Hormuz in southwestern Iran and found at Thamesfield, London; it was recorded by the PAS in 2017.(6)
• A Sasanian coin of Khosrow II, probably minted c. AD 618 at either Veh-Kavat or Veh-Ardashir (both in modern Iraq); possibly, although not certainly, found in the East Midlands in or before 2009.(7)

A Sasanian coin of Khosrow II, 590–628, found on the coast of the Island of Anglesey, Wales, in 2001 (image: PAS, CC BY 2.0, kindly modified by Yngve Karlsson).

With regard to the presence of these sixth- to seventh-century Sasanian coins in Britain, several points can be made. First, there seems little obvious reason to assume that they are all modern losses by careless antiquarian coin collectors. As has been observed in earlier posts, 'the proverbial absent-minded college don or cathedral canon, dropping items of his collection here, there and everywhere... has never seemed a very convincing character' (as Martin Biddle memorably put it), and the nature and circumstances of the finds under consideration here supports this.(8) Not only have these Sasanian coins all been found in widely distant locales, but they have also been discovered over an extensive period of time—1930 to 2017—yet appear to have been all minted near-contemporaneously too (in the later sixth to early seventh centuries), circumstances which arguably better fit with these coins being genuinely ancient losses and imports arriving due to a specific set of circumstances, rather than random modern losses or hoaxes. Indeed, a useful comparison might be made with the increasingly large quantity of sixth- to early seventh-century Byzantine coins now known from Britain, which were once viewed with hyper-scepticism by some but are now generally accepted as genuine imports to early medieval Britain.(9) Furthermore, potential Sasanian imports to early medieval Britain are not, in fact, limited to these coins alone, but also include a small number of Sasanian engraved gems which have been found in excavated Anglo-Saxon graves, something that is obviously of considerable interest and relevance in the present context.(10)

Second, with regard to the mechanism by which these coins might have arrived in Britain, Gareth Williams has suggested that they could have travelled alongside the above-mentioned Byzantine coins from North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean that are found in sixth- to seventh-century Britain.(11) Such a scenario would undoubtedly make a great deal of sense. There are, after all, clear connections between the Sasanian Empire's western neighbour, the Byzantine Empire, and both western Britain and Anglo-Saxon England in this era. For example, not only are significant numbers of early Byzantine coins found across the island, but there is also a considerable quantity of eastern Mediterranean pottery known from sites in the west, and isotopic and textual evidence moreover indicates that people who probably grew up in Byzantine North Africa were living and dying in seventh-century South Wales, Northumbria, East Anglia and Kent too.(12) The material in western Britain has long been seen as resulting from direct maritime contact with the eastern Mediterranean and that in the east can probably be at least partly seen in this light too, with finds of late sixth- to early seventh-century Byzantine coins from the Anglo-Saxon royal site of Rendlesham, Suffolk, having recently been interpreted as evidence for 'direct mercantile contacts' with the Byzantine world by Chris Scull et al.(13) As such, it seems perfectly credible that the Sasanian coins could have travelled directly to Britain alongside Byzantine imports, especially in light of the fact that Sasanian silks and gems were definitely imported into the Byzantine Empire and Sasanian coins are recorded from at least parts of the Byzantine Levant.(14) Indeed, it is worth noting that the Levant, parts of Anatolia and Egypt were all actually briefly under Sasanian control for a period in the early seventh century, something that may be of relevance here, especially given that, for example, the seventh-century Byzantine Life of St John the Almsgiver tells of a ship from Alexandria that visited Britain around that time and exchanged a cargo of corn for one of tin.(15)

A Sasanian coin of Khosrow II, 590–628, minted at Ram Hormuz in southwestern Iran and found at Thamesfield, London; it was recorded by the PAS in 2017 (image: PAS, CC BY 2.0).

A garnet intaglio of a lion mounted in an seventh-century Anglo-Saxon gold pendant from grave 172, Sibertswold Down, Kent; the gem has most recently been identified by Jeffrey Spier as a Sasanian original in his Late Antique and Early Christian Gems (Wiesbaden, 2007), p. 87. Image: Public Domain, drawn and engraved by F. W. Fairholt for B. Faussett, Inventorium Sepulchrale (London, 1856), plate IV, no. 17.

Looking south and east: Sasanian artefacts in Africa and East Asia

If the distribution of fifth- to seventh-century Sasanian extended to the north-western edge of the then-known world, it also reached equally far in the other directions. In East Africa, for example, Sasanian beads and pottery occur down the east coast from Ras Hafun, Somalia, to Kivinja, Tanzania (a site radiocarbon dated to the fifth to sixth centuries AD), and then on to Chibuene, southern Mozambique. The probably seventh-century Persian glass beads found on this last site are associated with a small amount of Sasanian pottery of the type found at Ras Hafun and are believed to attest to pre-Islamic direct trade links via the Persian Gulf that stretched right down into the south of Africa. Needless to say, this is particularly intriguing, especially as Chibuene is around 1,900km further south along the coast than the southernmost East African sites that have produced fifth- to seventh-century Byzantine artefacts! Even more interestingly, it also now appears that these beads, made with glass produced somewhere in the region east of the Euphrates, were subsequently traded inland from Chibuene, with three sites in Botswana now known to produce them, including Nqoma in far western Botswana, 1,500km from Chibuene and closer to the south-western coast of Africa than the east.(16) It is worth noting, incidentally, that Nqoma is not the only part of western Africa receiving Sasanian beads around this time—further north yet more beads manufactured east of the Euphrates are found in fifth- to seventh-century graves at Kissi, Burkina Faso, although these beads are thought to have arrived via a different route, through the Saharan Garamantian kingdom along with early Byzantine artefacts exported from the Mediterranean.(17)

Looking eastwards of the Sasanian Empire, the situation is equally interesting. As might be expected, there are significant quantities of Sasanian coins known from Central Asian Sogdiana, which bordered the Sasanian Empire in the north-east. However, there are also large numbers of Late Sasanian coins known from China too which almost certainly arrived there via Sogdiana and the Silk Road. The Sui–Tang period tombs of Astana (Xinjiang, China), for example, contain a significant number of these coins, which are notably more common than Byzantine pieces there, and Sasanian coins and glassware are additionally found at a significant number of sites further east too, as can be seen on the map included above—indeed, over 1,300 coins of Khosrow II alone have been found in China according to a recent survey.(18) In addition to these finds in the north, a number of sites in Guangdong in the south of China have also produced fifth- to seventh-century Sasanian coins, which presumably reflects maritime trade along the southern 'Silk Road of the sea' rather than the land route, an extension of the connections that brought Sasanian torpedo jars, seals and coins to India, Sri Lanka and even Thailand.(19) There is certainly documentary evidence for Persian activity and maritime trading in and around India, Sri Lanka and China in the Late Sasanian era and immediately after, and it has recently been suggested that this activity may well have extended as far as Korea and Japan in the fifth to seventh centuries. Thus not only is at least some Sasanian glass present in the late fifth- to early sixth-century AD royal tombs at Silla, South Korea, but a notable quantity of fifth- to seventh-century Sasanian glassware is also known from several sites in Japan, including Nara, Kyoto and Osaka. For example, the tomb of the 27th Emperor of Japan, Emperor Ankan, who died c. AD 536, contained a complete cut-glass Sasanian bowl of the fifth or sixth century, whilst the late fifth-century tomb 126 at Nara contained a blue glass Roman dish that had been painted in Sasanian Persia before being transported on to Japan. Although certainty is difficult, Seth Priestman has argued that these and other Persian finds in Japan are best seen as resulting from direct maritime contact with the Sasanian Empire, rather than indirect contact via the overland Silk Road, and in this light it is at the very least intriguing to note that documentary evidence has recently emerged of a Persian official or teacher living in eighth-century Japan.(20)

A repaired complete Sasanian glass bowl excavated from the sixth-century AD tumulus of Emperor Ankan in Osaka, Japan (image: Wikimedia Commons).

A selection of beads found at Kissi, Burkina Faso. Carnelian beads like those shown here were found in the fifth- to seventh-century grave 10 at Kissi 3 and are believed to have been manufactured in the Byzantine Near East/Egypt; chemical analysis of the glass beads indicates that they were made using glass from the Near and Middle East, with the majority being made within the Sasanian Empire. (Image: B. Voss/Afriques, CC)

Notes

1.     The following sources were used for areas other than Britain when putting together the map included here; it should, incidentally, be noted that Sasanian coins found in association with Islamic coinage—as all finds in Scandinavia, for example, seem to be—are not mapped here as they are believed to represent post-Sasanian trade. Map sources: I. Smirnov (ed.), Vostochnoe Serebro (St Petersburg, 1909); F. E. Day, 'Silks of the Near East', Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 9.4 (1950), 108–17; J. P. Oleson, 'An unpublished Sassanian seal, with a comment on the deportation of Armenians to Cyprus in AD 578', Levant, 8 (1976), 161–4; J. A. Lerner, 'Sasanian seals in the Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities of the British Museum', Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 35 (1976), 183–7; P. O. Harper & P. Meyers, Silver Vessels of the Sasanian Period. Volume One: Royal Imagery (New York, 1981); H. M. Malek, 'A survey of research on Sasanian numismatics', The Numismatic Chronicle, 153 (1993), 227–69; P. Urbańczyk (ed.), Origins of Central Europe (Warsaw, 1997); E.A. Smagulov, 'Finds of Sasanian gems in the Otrar Oasis', Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia, 3.2 (1997), 253–9; J. K. Skaff, 'The Sasanian and Arab-Sasanian silver coins from Turfan: their relationship to international trade and the local economy', Asia Major, 11.2 (1998), 67–115; S. D. Sears & D. T. Ariel, 'Finds of Late Sasanian and Early Muslim drachms in historical Palestine', ‘Atiqot, 40 (2000), 139–50; A. M. Maeir, 'Sassanica Varia Palaestiniensia: a Sassanian seal from T. Iṣtaba, Israel, and other Sassanian objects from the Southern Levant', Iranica Antiqua, 35 (2000), 159–83; M. Compareti, 'The Sasanians in Africa', Transoxiana, 4 (2002), online at http://www.transoxiana.org/0104/sasanians.html; T. Daryaee, 'The Persian Gulf trade in Late Antiquity', Journal of World History, 14 (2003), 1–16; R. K. Kovalev, 'Commerce and caravan routes along the Northern Silk Road (sixth-ninth centuries) – Part I: the western sector', Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, 14 (2005), 55–105; S. Li, 'The distribution and significance of Sassanid silver currency in China', Chinese Archaeology, 6 (2006), 190–4; M-L. Chen, 'The importation of Byzantine and Sasanian glass into China during the fourth to sixth centuries', in A. Harris (ed.), Incipient Gobalization? Long-Distance Contacts in the Sixth Century (Oxford, 2006), pp. 47–52; R. Tomber, 'Rome and Mesopotamia – importers into India in the first millennium AD', Antiquity, 81 (2007), 972–88; B. Borell, 'The early Byzantine lamp from Pong Tuk', Journal of the Siam Society, 96 (2008), 1–26; S. Magnavita, 'Sahelian crossroads: some aspects on the Iron Age sites of Kissi, Burkina Faso', in S. Magnavita et al (eds.), Crossroads / Carrefour Sahel: Cultural and Technological Developments in First Millennium BC/AD West Africa (Frankfurt, 2009), pp. 79–104; N. Schindel, Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum Israel (Wien, 2009); F. Curta & A. Gândilă, 'Hoards and hoarding patterns in the Early Byzantine Balkans', Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 65–66 (2011–2012), 45–111; T. Power, The Red Sea from Byzantium to the Caliphate: AD 500–1000 (Oxford, 2012); M. Wood et al, 'The glass of Chibuene, Mozambique: new insights into early Indian Ocean trade', The South African Archaeological Bulletin, 67 (2012), 59–74; S .Liu et al, 'Silk Road glass in Xinjiang, China: chemical compositional analysis and interpretation using a high-resolution portable XRF spectrometer', Journal of Archaeological Science, 39 (2012), 2128–42; G. I. Bijovsky, Gold Coin and Small Change: Monetary Circulation in Fifth-Seventh Century Byzantine Palestine (Trieste, 2012); J. Spier, Byzantium and the West: Jewelry in the First Millennium (London, 2012); L. Baratova & N. Schindel, Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum Usbekistan (Wien, 2012); A. Giumlía-Mair, 'Metallurgy and technology of the Hunnic gold hoard from Nagyszéksós', The Silk Road, 11 (2013), 12–35; E. Petac & A. Ionescu, 'Some Sassanian silver coins discovered at Axiopolis (Cernavoda, Constanta County, Romania)', Iranica Antiqua, 48 (2013), 355–60; S. Lee & D. P. Leidy, Silla: Korea's Golden Kingdom (New York, 2013); M. Kazanski, 'The Middle Dnieper area in the seventh century: an archaeological survey', in C. Zuckerman (ed.), Constructing the Seventh Century (Paris, 2013), pp. 769–864; N. Boivin et al, 'East Africa and Madagascar in the Indian Ocean world', Journal of World Prehistory, 26 (2013), 213–81; T. Gesztelyi, 'Sasanian seals in Hungarian collections', Acta Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis, 50 (2014), 179–83; J. Denbow et al, 'The glass beads of Kaitshaa: new insights on early Indian Ocean trade into the far interior of southern Africa', Antiquity, 89 (2015), 1–17; M. Wood, 'Divergent patterns in Indian Ocean trade to East Africa and southern Africa between the 7th and 17th centuries CE: the glass bead evidence', Afriques, 6 (2015), online at http://afriques.revues.org/1782; J. Then-Obluska, 'Cross-cultural bead encounters at the Red Sea port site of Berenike, Egypt. Preliminary assessment (seasons 2009 - 2012)', Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean, 24 (2015), 735–77 at p. 764; M. Gasparini, 'Sino-Iranian textile patterns in Trans-Himalayan areas', The Silk Road, 14 (2016), 84–96. The depiction of the Sasanian Empire in the late sixth century is based on P. Sluglett & A. Currie, Atlas of Islamic History (Routledge: London, 2014), pp. 13–15, maps 1 and 2.
2.     R. Abdy & G. Williams, 'A catalogue of hoards and single finds from the British Isles c. AD 410–675', in B. J. Cook & G. Williams (eds.), Coinage and History in the North Sea World, c. AD 500–1250: Essays in Honour of Marion Archibald (Leiden, 2006), pp. 11–74 at p. 57.
3.     Portable Antiquities Scheme, LVPL2174; R. Abdy & G. Williams, 'A catalogue of hoards and single finds from the British Isles c. AD 410–675', in B. J. Cook & G. Williams (eds.), Coinage and History in the North Sea World, c. AD 500–1250: Essays in Honour of Marion Archibald (Leiden, 2006), pp. 11–74 at p. 57. Information on the mint site kindly provided by Yngve Karlsson.
4.     M. P. T. Didsbury, Aspects of Late Iron Age and Romano-British Settlement in the Lower Hull Valley (University of Durham PhD thesis, 1990), vol. 2, p. 15 (dated broadly fifth to seventh century); Humber Historic Environment Record, 8734 (dated to the seventh century).
5.     Warwickshire Historic Environment Record, MWA9909.
6.     Portable Antiquities Scheme, LON-B2F5CF.
7.     Portable Antiquities Scheme, LEIC-BF6164. Note, this coin was discovered for purchase at a car boot sale in the Leicester area and no firm details are known of its find circumstances; as such, it needs to be used only very cautiously.
8.     Quotation from M. Biddle, 'Ptolemaic coins from Winchester', Antiquity, 49 (1975), 213–15.
9.     See, for example, S. Moorhead, 'Early Byzantine copper coins found in Britain – a review in light of new finds recorded with the Portable Antiquities Scheme', in O. Tekin (ed.), Ancient History, Numismatics and Epigraphy in the Mediterranean World (Istanbul, 2009), pp. 263–74; C. Morrisson, 'Byzantine coins in early medieval Britain: a Byzantinist's assessment', in R. Naismith et al (ed.), Early Medieval Monetary History: Studies in Memory of Mark Blackburn (London, 2014), pp. 207–42; E. S. Georganteli, 'Byzantine coins', in M. Biddle (ed.), The Winchester Mint and Coins and Related Finds from the Excavations of 1961-71, Winchester Studies 8 (Oxford, 2012), pp. 669–78; G. Williams, 'Anglo-Saxon gold coinage, part 1: the transition from Roman to Anglo-Saxon coinage', British Numismatic Journal, 80 (2010), 51–75; C. Scull et al, 'Social and economic complexity in early medieval England: a central place complex of the East Anglian kingdom at Rendlesham, Suffolk', Antiquity, 90 (2016), 1594-1612.
10.     J. Spier, 'Late Antique and Early Christian gems: some unpublished examples', in C. Entwistle & N. Adams (eds.), ‘Gems of Heaven’: Recent Research on Engraved Gemstones in Late Antiquity, c. AD 200–600 (London, 2011), pp. 193–207 at p. 199 ('A small number of... engraved Sasanian gems, have been found in other Anglo-Saxon graves, a notable indication of the great distance such prized objects could travel.'); J. Spier, Late Antique and Early Christian Gems (Wiesbaden, 2007), p. 87 (identifies the gems from Sibertswold, Kent, grave 172, and Alfriston, Sussex, grave 28, as Sasanian originals). See also P. W. Rogers, Costume in the Early Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Saltwood, Kent: Part 1, Women's Costume Accessories (2014), finds report, available online here, p. 30; H. Geake, The Use of Grave-Goods in Conversion-Period England, c.600–c.850 (Oxford, 1997), p. 39.
11.     G. Williams, 'Anglo-Saxon gold coinage, part 1: the transition from Roman to Anglo-Saxon coinage', British Numismatic Journal, 80 (2010), 51–75 at p. 58. An alternative scenario might be to associate them with the Viking impact on Britain in the ninth century, as Sasanian coins are found alongside later Arab-Sasanian coins and Islamic dirhams in Viking-era hoards in Scandinavia (see, for example, R. K. Kovalev, 'When and what regions of the Islamic world exported Sasanian and Arab-Sasanian silver coins to early Viking-Age Northern Lands?', in T. Talvio & M. Wijk (eds.), Myntstudier (Stockholm, 2015), pp. 68–83); however, Gareth Williams does not do this and it is important to note that the distribution of Sasanian coins from Britain catalogued here does not match well with that of Islamic dirhams in Britain thought to have been imported during the Viking-era, as mapped in C. R. Green, 'The distribution of Islamic dirhams in Anglo-Saxon England', 16 December 2014, blog post, online at http://www.caitlingreen.org/2014/12/distribution-of-islamic-dirhams-in-england.html., nor do any of the known Viking-era hoards of dirhams found in Britain contain Sasanian coins. As such, it is not adopted or pursued in the present post.
12.     On the coins, see the references cited in fn. 9; references for the imported Byzantine pottery can be found in fn. 13, below. The isotopic results are discussed and summarized in C. R. Green, 'Some oxygen isotope evidence for long-distance migration to Britain from North Africa & southern Iberia, c.1100 BC–AD 800', 24 October 2015, blog post, online at http://www.caitlingreen.org/2015/10/oxygen-isotope-evidence.html and C. R. Green, 'A note on the evidence for African migrants in Britain from the Bronze Age to the medieval period', 23 May 2016, blog post, online at http://www.caitlingreen.org/2016/05/a-note-on-evidence-for-african-migrants.html. The results discussed and analysed in these posts were published in K. A. Hemer et al, 'Evidence of early medieval trade and migration between Wales and the Mediterranean Sea region', Journal of Archaeological Science, 40 (2013), 2352–59; S. Lucy et al, 'The burial of a princess? The later seventh-­century cemetery at Westfield Farm, Ely', Antiquity, 89 (2009), 81–141; S. E. Groves et al, 'Mobility histories of 7th–9th century AD people buried at early medieval Bamburgh, Northumberland, England', American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 151 (2013), 462–76; and J. A. Evans et al, 'A summary of strontium and oxygen isotope variation in archaeological human tooth enamel excavated from Britain', Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry, 27 (2012), 754–64 and 'Supplementary Material I' (14 pp.). The textual evidence relates to the early eighth-century Historia Ecclesiastica IV.1, where Bede describes Hadrian, the later seventh- and eighth-century Abbot of St Augustine's, Canterbury, as 'a man of African race' (HE IV.1). Hadrian is thought to have grown up in Libya Cyrenaica before the mid-seventh-century Arab conquest of North Africa: B Bischoff & M. Lapidge, Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian (Cambridge, 1994), especially p. 92.
13.     For eastern Britain and East Anglia, see C. Scull et al, 'Social and economic complexity in early medieval England: a central place complex of the East Anglian kingdom at Rendlesham, Suffolk', Antiquity, 90 (2016), 1594-1612; for western Britain and Byzantine imported pottery, see for example M. Fulford, 'Byzantium and Britain: a Mediterranean perspective on post-Roman Mediterranean imports in western Britain and Ireland', Medieval Archaeology, 33 (1989), 1–6; E. Campbell, Continental and Mediterranean Imports to Atlantic Britain and Ireland, AD 400–800, Council for British Archaeology Research Report 157 (York, 2007); E. Campbell & C. Bowles, 'Byzantine trade to the edge of the world: Mediterranean pottery imports to Atlantic Britain in the 6th century', in M. M. Mango (ed.), Byzantine Trade, 4th-12th Centuries: The Archaeology of Local, Regional and International Exchange (Farnham, 2009), pp. 297–314; and T. M. Charles-Edwards, Wales and the Britons, 350–1064 (Oxford, 2013), pp. 222–3. On Byzantine–British connections, we can also note, for example, the Penmachno Stone from North Wales, which has recently been persuasively interpreted as a late sixth-century monument declaring continuing British loyalty to the Byzantine Emperor Justin II: T. M. Charles-Edwards, Wales and the Britons, 350–1064 (Oxford, 2013), pp. 234–8.
14.     For example, Procopius in the mid-sixth century mentioned that the Romans of the eastern empire (now usually termed the Byzantine Empire) 'buy silk from the Persians', although few potential examples now survive of these silk imports: see H. B. Feltham, 'Justinian and the international silk trade', Sino-Platonic Papers, 194 (2009), pp. 1–40; M. Compareti, 'The Sasanians in Africa', Transoxiana, 4 (2002), online at http://www.transoxiana.org/0104/sasanians.html; F. E. Day, 'Silks of the Near East', Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 9.4 (1950), 108–17; N. Oikonomides, 'Silk trade and production in Byzantium from the sixth to the ninth century: the seals of kommerkiarioi', Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 40 (1986), 35–53. On gems, coins and other Sasanian artefacts in the Byzantine Empire, see for example J. P. Oleson, 'An unpublished Sassanian seal, with a comment on the deportation of Armenians to Cyprus in AD 578', Levant, 8 (1976), 161–4; J. A. Lerner, 'Sasanian seals in the Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities of the British Museum', Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 35 (1976), 183–7; S. D. Sears & D. T. Ariel, 'Finds of Late Sasanian and Early Muslim drachms in historical Palestine', ‘Atiqot, 40 (2000), 139–50; A. M. Maeir, 'Sassanica Varia Palaestiniensia: a Sassanian seal from T. Iṣtaba, Israel, and other Sassanian objects from the Southern Levant', Iranica Antiqua, 35 (2000), 159–83; N. Schindel, Sylloge Nummorum Sasanidarum Israel (Wien, 2009).
15.     Leontius, Life of St John the Almsgiver, chapter 10; C. A. Snyder, An Age of Tyrants: Britain and the Britons, AD 400–600 (Stroud, 1998), p. 152; C. J. Salter, 'Early tin extraction in the south-west of England: a resource for Mediterranean metalworkers of late antiquity', in M. M. Mango (ed.), Byzantine Trade, 4th–12th Centuries: The Archaeology of Local, Regional and International Exchange (Farnham, 2009), pp. 315–22 at p. 320; M. M. Mango, 'Tracking Byzantine silver and copper metalware, 4th–12th centuries', in Mango (ed.), Byzantine Trade, 4th–12th Centuries, pp. 221–36 at p. 223.
16.     On Late Antique trade down the East African coast, see especially N. Boivin et al, 'East Africa and Madagascar in the Indian Ocean world', Journal of World Prehistory, 26 (2013), 213–81 at pp. 244–5, for a good, recent summary. On Chibuene and Persian beads traded into Botswana, see M. Wood et al, 'The glass of Chibuene, Mozambique: new insights into early Indian Ocean trade', The South African Archaeological Bulletin, 67 (2012), 59–74; M. Wood, Interconnections: Glass beads and Trade in Southern and Eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean – 7th to 16th centuries AD (Uppsala, 2011); M. Wood, 'Eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean world in the first millennium CE: the glass bead evidence', in G. Campbell (ed.), Early Exchange between Africa and the Wider Indian Ocean World (Cham, 2016), pp. 173–94 at pp. 184–6; J. Denbow et al, 'The glass beads of Kaitshaa: new insights on early Indian Ocean trade into the far interior of southern Africa', Antiquity, 89 (2015), 1–17; M. Wood, 'Divergent patterns in Indian Ocean trade to East Africa and southern Africa between the 7th and 17th centuries CE: the glass bead evidence', Afriques, 6 (2015), online at http://afriques.revues.org/1782; A. M. Daggett, Early Iron Age Social and Economic Organization in Sowa Pan, Botswana (Michigan State University PhD Thesis, 2015), especially p. 322.
17.     On the Sasanian beads of Sub-Saharan West Africa, see S. Magnavita, 'Sahelian crossroads: some aspects on the Iron Age sites of Kissi, Burkina Faso', in S. Magnavita et al (eds.), Crossroads / Carrefour Sahel: Cultural and Technological Developments in First Millennium BC/AD West Africa (Frankfurt, 2009), pp. 79–104, and S. Magnavita, 'Initial encounters: seeking traces of ancient trade connections between West Africa and the wider world', Afriques, 4 (2013), online at https://afriques.revues.org/1145.
18.     See, for example, S. Li, 'The distribution and significance of Sassanid silver currency in China', Chinese Archaeology, 6 (2006), 190–4; M-L. Chen, 'The importation of Byzantine and Sasanian glass into China during the fourth to sixth centuries', in A. Harris (ed.), Incipient Gobalization? Long-Distance Contacts in the Sixth Century (Oxford, 2006), pp. 47–52; S .Liu et al, 'Silk Road glass in Xinjiang, China: chemical compositional analysis and interpretation using a high-resolution portable XRF spectrometer', Journal of Archaeological Science, 39 (2012), 2128–42; J. K. Skaff, 'The Sasanian and Arab-Sasanian silver coins from Turfan: their relationship to international trade and the local economy', Asia Major, 11.2 (1998), 67–115.
19.     For finds in southern China, see for example Li, 'The distribution and significance of Sassanid silver currency in China'; R. C. Houston, 'A note on two coin hoards reported in Kao Ku', Museum Notes (American Numismatic Society), 20 (1975), 153–60; T. Daryaee, 'The Persian Gulf trade in Late Antiquity', Journal of World History, 14 (2003), 1–16; T. Daryaee, Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire (London, 2009), pp. 138–9. Note, Daryaee, 'The Persian Gulf trade in Late Antiquity', p. 13, suggests the coastal finds in east China may also result from the maritime trade route, rather than the overland Silk Road, and notes the discovery of a potential Zoroastrian fire-temple in southern China (p. 14). For finds in India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand (at Yarang) and documentary references to Persian maritime trade across to China, see, for example, R. Tomber, 'Rome and Mesopotamia – importers into India in the first millennium AD', Antiquity, 81 (2007), 972–88; B. Borell, 'The early Byzantine lamp from Pong Tuk', Journal of the Siam Society, 96 (2008), 1–26 at pp. 9 and 11; D. Whitehouse & A. Williamson, 'Sasanian maritime trade', Iran, 11 (1973), 29–49; Daryaee, 'The Persian Gulf trade in Late Antiquity'; and S. Faller, 'The world according to Cosmas Indicopleustes – concepts and illustrations of an Alexandrian merchant and monk', Transcultural Studies, 1 (2011), online at http://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/index.php/transcultural/article/view/6127/2962, although see now R. R. Darley, '"Implicit cosmopolitanism" and the commercial role of ancient Lanka', in Z. Biedermann & A. Strathern (eds.), Sri Lanka at the Crossroads of History (London, 2017), pp. 44-65, on the disputed character of Sri Lankan finds of Sasanian coins and also on textual references to Persian activity on the island.
20.     On the Korean finds, see C. Kwangshik, 'Silla art and the Silk Road', International Journal of Korean History, 19 (2014), 1–22 at p. 3; S. Lee & D. P. Leidy, Silla: Korea's Golden Kingdom (New York, 2013), p. 125. On the Japanese finds, see S. Priestman, 'The Silk Road or the sea? Sasanian and Islamic exports to Japan', Journal of Islamic Archaeology, 3 (2016), 1-35, who argues for these items having arrived via the sea rather than the overland Silk Road; there is also some discussion of these finds in the Encyclopædia Iranica, 'Japan XI: collections of Persian art in Japan' (2008), available online. The documentary evidence for a Persian official living in Japan was revealed in October 2016: 'Research uncovers evidence that ancient Japan was "more cosmopolitan" than previously thought', Japan Times, October 5 2016, online edition.

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