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12th c. copper plates

It is surprizing for a white man how much history such places may have. Zanzibar, Seychelles, Maldives, they are by no means mere touristic paradises created just yesterday. It was indeed a surprise for me to discover that Maldivian literature is well testified as early as the 12th c., with lōmāfānu, sort of bunches of copper plates joined with a piece of string just as one may often see colour specimens of different materials in our own building markets. They are written in one of various Dhivehi scripts that evolved along the centuries; apparently, their closest relative is the Sinhalese script from Sri Lanka. All this is associated with the expansion of Buddhism that reached also these islands, during - how hard this is to believe! - the Mauryan period. Which is something one or two centuries older than Roman empire.