Pitt Rivers Museum Anthropology and World Archaology

 

Asia

 

Coin

China

 

Thought to have been collected by Louis Colville Gray Clarke

Acquired by the Museum by exchange in 1936

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Coin, China

The first Chinese coins were copies of bronze agricultural tools, usually knives or spades. It is thought that the tools themselves had originally been used, but that coins were invented to standardize the practice. This is an example of tao, or knife money.

View database record 1936.64.3-.5