Archaeologists in Pakistan have unearthed an incredibly rare hoard of copper coins. The coins are thought to be more than 2,000 years old and were found among the ruins of a Buddhist shrine in Mohenjo-Daro.
The coins and shrine, which is known as a stupa, are thought to date back to the time period of the Kushan Empire; a mainly Buddhist polity that ruled the region from about the second century B.C. until the third century A.D.
The shrine is located among the vast ruins at Mohenjo-Daro in southeast Pakistan, which can be traced back to around 2600 B.C. The ruins are from the ancient Indus Valley, or Harappan, civilization — one of the oldest in the world.
According to archaeologist and guide Sheikh Javed Ali Sindhi, the stupa rests on the deserted ruins of Mohenjo-Daro, and was built after the city’s decline at least 1,600 years later.
A team, led by Syed Shakir Shah, the director of archaeology at the Mohenjo Daro site, recovered the coin hoard from the ruins of the Buddhist shrine after a wall collapsed during a salvage excavation earlier this month.
The coins have tarnished green over the years, as copper tends to corrode when exposed to air. After centuries of corrosion, the coins have not only turned green but also fused into a single lump that now weighs about 12 pounds (5.5 kilograms).
Sindhi was quoted as saying that a few coins have also been found separately. He believes that the hoard likely consisted of between 1,000 and 1,500 individual coins.
Most of the outer coins in the hoard seem to depict a standing figure which the researchers believe may be a depiction of a King from the Kushan Empire.
According to Archaeologist Sheikh Javed Ali Sindhi, the coins are the first artifacts to be found at the stupa’s ruins since 1931.
Although most of the coins are fused together, they will be carefully cleaned at an archaeological laboratory in order to be properly examined.
