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Archaeologists in Pakistan have unearth an extremely rarefied hoard of copper coin , thought to be more than 2,000 age old , from the ruining of a Buddhistic shrine build at the even more ancient situation of Mohenjo - Daro .
The coins and shrine — known as a stupa — are thought to date from the time of theKushan Empire , a mainly Buddhist polity that rule the region from about the 2d century B.C. until the third century A.D. , and conquer the Greco - Bactrian kingdom established in Central Asia byAlexander the Great .
The hoard of copper coins have fused after centuries of corrosion into a single lump that weighs about 12 pounds (5.5 kg).
The shrine ride among thevast downfall at Mohenjo - Daroin what is now southeast Pakistan , which date to around 2600 B.C. and are from the ancientIndus Valley or Harappan refinement — one of theoldest civilizationsin the Earth .
" The tope was built on the top of abandoned wrecking of Mohenjo - Daro after its decline [ around ] 1,600 years later , " archeologist and guideSheikh Javed Ali Sindhitold Live Science .
Sindhi was part of the team that unearthed the coin stash at Mohenjo - Daroearlier this monthduring a salvage archeological site at the web site when a wall collapsed . The workplace was led by Syed Shakir Shah , who is the film director of archaeology at the Mohenjo Daro site .
The coin hoard was found amid the ruins of a Buddhist shrine built above the remains of the ancient city more than 2,000 years ago.
The coins will now be cautiously clean at an archaeological laboratory , Sindhi say .
Kushan coins
The newfound coin are colored unripe becausecopper corrodeswhen debunk to air . century of corroding have also fused the coins into a individual lump that weighs about 12 pound ( 5.5 kilograms ) .
But a few coin have been found separately . The fused hoard believably dwell of between 1,000 and 1,500 individual coins , Sindhi say .
Some of the stunned coins of the fused stash depict a standing material body , which the researchers think is in all probability a depiction of a Kushan Billie Jean Moffitt King , he said .
Archaeologists think the coins date from the period of the Kushan Empire, which ruled the region from about the second century B.C. until about the third century A.D.
The coins are the first artifacts unearthed at the stupa ’s ruination since 1931 , when British archaeologist Ernest MacKay unearthed more than 1,000 fuzz coins there , Sindhi say . Other coin were discovered at the stupa in the 1920s .
These early discovery have like portrayal of a stand figure on one side , while the other side sometimes depicts the Hindu god Shiva — Buddhism initiate in Hindu belief — and other symbols , Sindhi say .
Buddhist stupa
Mohenjo - Daro — its name may signify " mound of the idle " in the local Sindhi spoken language — was abandoned by about 1800 B.C. , along with other larger cities of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization .
investigator now thinkthe Harappan cities were establish too far from the flood plain of the Indus River to survive in a dry clime , which lead people to forsake them for belittled colonization in the Himalayan foothills .
In about A.D. 150 , the mogul of the Kushan Empire are consider to have range the mental synthesis of the Buddhist stupa at Mohenjo - Daro . By that sentence the underlying ruins of the ancient city were almost 2,000 days former , but it ’s not know how much of the ancient site would have been seeable at that time .
The coin hoard and the remains of a pottery vessel that held it were discovered during a salvage excavation of the site earlier this month.
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Although most of the coins are fused together and must be cleaned before they can be properly examined, some show a standing figure that archaeologists think represents the Kushan king who had them made.
The stupa was abandoned in about A.D. 500 . , possibly after being damage in an earthquake or becauseBuddhismhad declined in influence in that area .
By that clip , the Kushan Empire had fragmented into independent kingdoms , which were first suppress by the Sasanian Persians and by and by by invader from the north who may have been associated withthe Huns .
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