Ancient Roman Glass Beads in 5th-Century Japanese Tomb

Tests have revealed three glass beads discovered in the Fifth Century “Utsukushi” burial mound in Nagaoka, near Kyoto, were probably made some time between the first and the fourth century, the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties said.

Source:
heritageofjapan.wordpress.com... overed-in-japanese-5th-century-noblemans-tomb-near-kyoto/


I guess this isn't brand-new news...the article is from 2012, but its new news to me. Nobody really knows how or why they ended up there. Certainly Rome and Japan were about as far apart as civilizations got at the time, at least in the Eastern Hemisphere.

It just goes to show you that there are more connections out there than we imagine. My personal guess is that they made their way to Japan through trading. Japan at the time had some limited contact with China and Korea, and it is accepted that Ancient Rome and Ancient China had knowledge of each other. What would be more improbable would be if Japan and Rome knew of each other...this is pretty unlikey and there is no evidence to support it...but somehow those beads got from point A to point B.

Thoughts?

Well sir, It seems to me that your guess sums it up very well.
I would have to agree with your hypothesis and say via trade routes and lines through various cultures
eventually making their way to Japan.

I would find it impossible to believe that Rome wouldn't have been aware of Japan. Just a glance at what Rome was capable of, and the control it took to manage the empire, and they would have had to have had some kind of intelligence regarding Japan and the entire region.

Roman Empire fell, the Romans ran like the Greeks. The most probable reasons for Roman stuff being in Japan or China is obvious.
#1 The Romans ran East to China through Russian territory as the Muslims took over from the south.
#2 Japan trading with China at most before they had the war with each other. Quite Obvious Japan and China had been trading long before the Romans took over Greece.

Our main religion today has a lot of history from Buddhism to Christianity.

Trans-Asian trade was around for many, many years... Roman traders went everywhere, and goods came to Rome from everywhere.

I'd find it hard to believe that Roman traders, at the least, weren't aware of the Asian civilizations. ...and they, aware of Rome. Rome traded south across the Indus, why not across Asia?

I love things like this, it makes the world so much smaller.

There was the "Silk Road", a trading network going all the way from Europe to China. Traders didn't travel all the way from Europe to China, but instead formed a chain link of small to-and-fro commutes. Whole families spent their entire lives just traveling by camel herd from one town to another buying and selling merchandise. But in that way, silk came from China and gold went out from the Roman empire, which thus meant the Romans had to invade Egypt.

en.wikipedia.org...

Roman artisans began to replace yarn with valuable plain silk cloths from China.[29] Chinese wealth grew as they delivered silk and other luxury goods to the Roman Empire, whose wealthy Roman women admired their beauty.[30] The Roman Senate issued, in vain, several edicts to prohibit the wearing of silk, on economic and moral grounds: the importation of Chinese silk caused a huge outflow of gold, and silk clothes were considered to be decadent and immoral.

pacifictycoon.wordpress.com...

There was a TV series called "The Silk Road" in the 1970's, which was documenting archeologists who were exploring all of the old cities that had long been abandoned and covered up by desert sand:

www.youtube.com...

Whole cities grew up from this trade only to be abandoned when Europe gained the knowledge of silk production.

originally posted by: stormcell
There was the "Silk Road", a trading network going all the way from Europe to China. Traders didn't travel all the way from Europe to China, but instead formed a chain link of small to-and-fro commutes. Whole families spent their entire lives just traveling by camel herd from one town to another buying and selling merchandise. But in that way, silk came from China and gold went out from the Roman empire, which thus meant the Romans had to invade Egypt.

This is undoubtedly how these beads came to the Orient. A star for you.

Trading via the Silk Road started two hundred years before the date for these beads.

Harte

They've found Buddhas in Viking tombs. Why not Roman beads in Japanese tombs?

There was a Roman colony on the Indian sub-continent for a while and, as stated by others, trade via the central Asian silk road was well established, so I don't see why it would be so far fetched trade took place. I doubt Romans themselves made it all the way to Japan, but certainly trade goods would have got to China and from them, onwards.

The Roman ports in India, I'll mention just one Arikumedu:

Roman trade port

I'll add a short article on exchange systems (trade) as seen by anthropologists.

Since this thread popped up again