The Lost Gold Coins of the Old Singapore Library
Manage episode 398784107 series 3476396
In the mid-19th century, two ancient gold coins were uncovered near present-day Keppel Harbour. Unfortunately, the Acehnese coins vanished before they could be studied carefully. The Jawi inscriptions on the coins were recorded, though they didn’t make sense. More than 180 years later, Foo Shu Tieng tries to solve the case.
Foo Shu Tieng is Associate Librarian with the National Library, Singapore, and works with the Singapore and Southeast Asia collections. She has written about stone age in Singapore and Ancient Gold in Southeast Asia in BiblioAsia.
What Shu Talked About
02:11 – When and where the coins were found
04:35 – Whether the coins were stolen
05:48 – How common artefact theft is
06:30 – What coins can tell us about Singapore’s history
08:53 – Why and how Shu reexamined the Jawi transcription on the coins
10:43 – Response to Shu’s research on the coins
11:57 – Other ancient coins found in Singapore
12:49 – A common misconception of archaeology
13:21 — An archaeological mystery that Shu would like to solve
15:26 – Shu’s favourite archaeological pop-culture moment
16:00 – Archaeology is…
Read the transcript: biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/podcast/lost-gold-coins/transcript/
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This episode of BiblioAsia+ was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by One Dash. The background music "Di Tanjong Katong" was composed by Osman Ahmad and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to Shu for coming on the show.
BiblioAsia+ is a podcast about Singapore history by the National Library of Singapore.
26 episodes