A trove of artifacts, including coins dating to China’s Song Dynasty 900 years ago, have been uncovered at a construction site in Hualien’s Chongde (崇德) area, the Hualien Cultural Affairs Bureau said on Monday.
Workers reported finding what appeared to be the corner of a tomb while laying a foundation in Sioulin Township (秀林) last month, bureau Director Wu Chin-yi (吳勁毅) said.
The owner of the land agreed to let the bureau investigate the site before construction resumed, Wu said, adding that its work is expected to take another two months due to the abundance of items.
Photo courtesy of the Hualien Cultural Affairs Bureau
One of the most exciting finds so far is coins from the Xining period (1068 to 1077) of Song Dynasty Emperor Shenzong (神宗), Wu said.
While coins from that era have been found before in Taiwan — at the Lingding (嶺頂) site in Hualien’s Shoufeng Township (壽豐) — there is debate about whether they were deposited there at the time they were in circulation or disposed of much later, he said.
The coins, as well as bracelets and agate beads found at the Chongde site, showed that people living near the mouth of the Liwu River (立霧溪) at the time had much more extensive trade links with China than was previously known, Wu said.
Other items found at the site include fish bones, which are evidence that residents at the time were adept at fishing in the sea, as well as a lot of the gray and black pottery typical of the middle Iron Age in Taiwan, he said.
The artifacts would be put in a collection at the Hualien Archeological Museum, where they would be available for researchers of the region’s early history to study, Wu said.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS