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Romans vs Khmers: They came, they saw, they traded... or did they?

"No one disputes that Oc Eo is a site of great archaelogical value. Vietnam this week named it a "national relic". But was it also the place where ancient Romans and Khmers met?"

https://www.phnompenhpost.com/post-week ... r-did-they

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SternAAlbifrons wrote: ↑Sun Dec 01, 2019 2:25 pm Romans vs Khmers: They came, they saw, they traded... or did they?

"No one disputes that Oc Eo is a site of great archaelogical value. Vietnam this week named it a "national relic". But was it also the place where ancient Romans and Khmers met?"

https://www.phnompenhpost.com/post-week ... r-did-they

One thing for sure, the Romans did not teach Khmers how to build roads when / if they were here.

Misnomer of a title. These were the Funan, forefathers of the all the SE Asia groups, thought to have founded the entire region in general.

The Xiongnu controlled the land trade from China to Persia.

The evidence that Roman traders made it this far, with the discovery of a key port in Funan Kingdom times is great.

The Romans conquered as far as their administrative systems could keep up. That maximum distance east was around the Middle East. Maybe if they had a more organized bureaucracy like imperial China, they could have swallowed Persia as well.

I read somewhere that the Byzantine (formerly the Eastern Roman Empire) set up an embassy in China around 1000 AD with a possible thought of a military alliance.

By then Muslims were rapidly surrounding them, and Crusaders were rampaging through. Chinese troops were never sent.

The article is from 2015 and I remember reading it when it first came out. I think it's a bit farfetched as it isn't exactly uncommon to find coins far from their manufacturing origins.

Most likely they were traded amongst middlemen and not directly with Roman traders. Roman coins (and coins in general) were traded in many places amongst many people, often long after the fall of the empire for the simple reason that they weren't fiat money, and as such, the coins always had some sort of value due to whatever material they were made of (usually gold, silver, bronze and copper). So who knows how or when those coins got there, but it's highly unlikely some Romans rocked up in togas to trade. Still, it's definitely interesting to say dream about all the hands those coins must ha e gone through before reaching Funan...