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…

Transcript and Resources

• Read the transcript: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/podcast/lost-gold-coins/transcript/
• Read the BiblioAsia article: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/vol-19/issue-3/oct-dec-2023/acehnese-chinese-gold-coins/

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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.