Ancient Chinese Coinage - Pre-Imperial (770-220 BC)

Pre-Imperial (770-220 BC)

The earliest coinage of China was described by Sima Qian, the great historian of c. 100 BC:

"With the opening of exchange between farmers, artisans, and merchants, there came into use money of tortoise shells, cowrie shells, gold, 錢 qian (coins), 刀 dao (knives), and 布 bu (spades) This has been so from remote antiquity."

While nothing is known about the use of tortoise shells as money, gold and cowries (either real shells or replicas) were used to the south of the Yellow River. Although there is no doubt that the well-known spade and knife money were used as coins, it has not been demonstrated that other items often offered by dealers as coins such as fish, halberds, and metal chimes were also used as coins. They are not found in coin hoards, and the probability is that all these are in fact funerary items. Archaeological evidence shows that the earliest use of the spade and knife money was in the Spring and Autumn period (770-476 BC). As in Ancient Greece, socio-economic conditions at the time were favourable to the adoption of coinage.