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Monetaria moneta, common name the money cowrie, is a species of small sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Cypraeidae, the cowries. [1]This species is called "money cowrie" because the shells were historically widely used in many Pacific and Indian Ocean countries as shell money before coinage was in common usage.
The Classical Chinese character radical for "money/currency", 貝, originated as a pictograph of a cowrie shell. [12] Cowrie shell imitation in green bone, China, Western Zhou Dy (1046 BC–771 BC)-Jin State; length: 40.3 mm. Cowries or kaudi were used as means of exchange in India since ancient times up to around 1830.
The Classical Chinese character for money originated as a stylized drawing of a Maldivian cowrie shell. [10] [11] Words and characters concerning money, property or wealth usually have this as a radical. Before the Spring and Autumn period the cowrie was used as a type of trade token awarding access to a feudal lord's resources to a worthy vassal.
Born right smack on the cusp of millennial and Gen Z years (ahem, 1996), I grew up both enjoying the wonders of a digital-free world—collecting snail shells in my pocket and scraping knees on my ...
Monetaria annulus, common name the ring cowrie, ring top cowrie, or gold ring cowrie, is a species of sea snail, a cowry, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Cypraeidae, the cowries. [ 1 ] Description
Burial money was modeled after the many different types of ancient Chinese coinages, and earlier forms of burial money tended to be actual money. [5] Graves that were dated to the Shang dynasty period have been discovered that contain thousands of cowrie shells, for example, the Fu Hao-mu, dating to about the year 1200 BCE, was discovered containing 6,900 cowry shells. [8]
Useful interactions with molluscs range from their use as food, where species as diverse as snails and squid are eaten in many countries, to the employment of molluscs as shell money and to make dyestuffs and musical instruments, for personal adornment with seashells, pearls, or mother-of-pearl, as items to be collected, as fictionalised sea ...
Cypraeidae, commonly named the cowries (sg. cowry), is a taxonomic family of small to large sea snails. These are marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Cypraeoidea, the cowries and cowry allies. [1]