The Lost Gold Coins of the Old Singapore Library

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 About02:11 – When and where the coins were found04:35 – Whether the coins were stolen05:48 – How common artefact theft is06:30 – What coins can tell us about Singapore’s history08:53 – Why and how Shu reexamined the Jawi transcription on the coins10:43 – Response to Shu’s research on the coins11:57 – Other ancient coins found in Singapore12:49 – A common misconception of archaeology13:21 — An archaeological mystery that Shu would like to solve15:26 – Shu’s favourite archaeological pop-culture moment16:00 – Archaeology is…Transcript and ResourcesRead the transcript: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/all-sections/podcast-lost-gold-coins/Read the BiblioAsia article: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/all-sections/vol-19-issue-3-oct-dec-2023-acehnese-chinese-gold-coins/Subscribe to BiblioAsia for more stories about Singapore.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 Ahmad Patek and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to Shu for coming on the show.The BiblioAsia Podcast by the National Library Singapore tells stories about Singapore history.