page_title: Chinese burial money
section_title: Silk burial money
hierarchical_section_title: Chinese burial money / Silk burial money
caption_attribution_description: English: Mawangdui Han Tombs, Changsha, Hunan. Complete indexed photo collection at WorldHistoryPics.com.
context_page_description: Chinese burial money a.k.a. dark coins are Chinese imitations of currency that are placed in the grave of a person that is to be buried. The practice dates to the Shang dynasty when cowrie shells were used, in the belief that the money would be used in the afterlife as a bribe to Yan Wang for a more favourable spiritual destination. The practice changed to replica currency to deter grave robbers, and these coins and other imitation currencies were referred to as clay money or earthenware money.
  Chinese burial money has been discovered dating as far back as 1300 BCE and remained popular throughout Chinese history until the advent of joss paper and hell money during the late 19th century CE.
context_section_description: Silk funerary money  (traditional Chinese: 絲織品做的冥幣; simplified Chinese: 丝织品做的冥币; pinyin: sī zhī pǐn zuò de míng bì) has been uncovered in tombs and other burial sites dating to the Han dynasty period. Silk fabric was considered to be a valuable form of commodity in China during ancient and imperial times and bolts of silk could also be used as a type of currency because of its high market value. The Silk funerary money that was recovered from Tomb No. 1 (the tomb of Xin Zhui) at the Mawangdui archaeological site. The silk funerary money that was recovered from the Mawangdui site was moved to be on display at the Hunan Provincial Museum, as of March 2015. 
  Because of this discovery, it is now believed by some Chinese archaeologists that the Warring States period State of Chu's rather distinctive looking sheet form of gold coinage, which in the modern era is known as Ying Yuan, with the closely linked small squares that might have in fact been inspired by this ancient type of Chinese silk money. This hypothesis linking the silk currency to the Chu gold coinage would further explain the reason why the clay imitation version (or burial variants) of the Chu State Ying Yuan that has been uncovered in tombs have a surface design that looks like the fabric of clothing.
caption: Silk funerary money discovered at Tomb No. 1 (the tomb of Xin Zhui) at the Mawangdui archaeological site in Changsha, Hunan.
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