Cowrie-shell coin, earliest coins of China, Shang dynasty, c.1766-1154 BC - Hartill #1.1
Primitive earliest Chinese coinage - natural cowrie shell (Cyprae Moneta type) with the back filed off to enable stringing. 22mm long, 1.82 grams. Hartill type #1.1; Jen #1; Schjoth #A-4; cf.Zeno 305900; Gratzer/Fishman page i.
The back on these early "money cowries" was filed off to make them thinner and flat (so they would not roll around), as well as to enable stringing. Very nice high quality example.
China was the home of the earliest objects which can be comfortably qualified as “coins” – objects of value of a defined size, made of a valued substance, commonly accepted by the people and used in trade or commerce. The origin of the earliest coins is hidden in
the mists of pre-history, and ancient writers tended to ascribe monetary uses to a variety of materials such as tortoise shells, cowrie shells, pearls, skins, teeth, horns, textiles and various tools, stone and bronze. A famous paragraph written by the great historian Sima Qian in ca.100 BC in his Records of the Grand Historian states that “…with the opening of exchange between farmers, artisans, and merchants, there came into use money of tortoise shells, cowrie shells, gold, coins, knives and spades. This has been so from remote antiquity.
Records and archaeological evidence suggest that the natural cowries were regarded as important objects of value in the Shang Dynasty (ca. 1600–1046 BC). In the Zhou period, they are frequently referred to as gifts or rewards from kings and nobles to their subjects, fulfilling some of the functions the “proper” coins were to assume in later times. In the 14th century BC, cowry shells came to be perceived as medium for wealth storage, for around 1300 BC Emperor Pan Geng of the Shang dynasty “rebuked his ministers for their greed in hoarding cowries and gems.” Archaeological excavations confirm the widespread use of the cowries – they are found in most of the ancient China, though it seems they were particularly popular in Yunnan in the south.
This coin is unconditionally guaranteed to be authentic.
SKU xv2048-w70979