page_title: Shell money
section_title: Asia
hierarchical_section_title: Shell money / Asia
caption_attribution_description: English: Chinese_shell_money_16th_8th_century_BCE
context_page_description: Shell money is a medium of exchange similar to coin money and other forms of commodity money, and was once commonly used in many parts of the world. Shell money usually consisted of whole or partial sea shells, often worked into beads or otherwise shaped. The use of shells in trade began as direct commodity exchange, the shells having value as body ornamentation. The distinction between beads as commodities and beads as money has been the subject of debate among economic anthropologists.
  Shell money has appeared in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia. The most familiar form may be the wampum created by the Indigenous peoples of the East Coast of North America, ground beads cut from the purple part of marine bivalve shells. The shell most widely used worldwide as currency was the shell of Cypraea moneta, the money cowry. This species is most abundant in the Indian Ocean, and was collected in the Maldive Islands, in Sri Lanka, along the Malabar coast, in Borneo and on other East Indian islands, and in various parts of the African coast from Ras Hafun to Mozambique. Cowry shell money was an important part of the trade networks of Africa, South Asia, and East Asia.
context_section_description: In China, cowries were so important that many characters relating to money or trade contain the character for cowry: 貝.  Starting over three thousand years ago, cowry shells, or copies of the shells, were used as Chinese currency. The Classical Chinese character for "money/currency", 貝, originated as a pictograph of a cowrie shell.
  Cowries were formerly used as means of exchange in India. In Bengal, where it required 3840 to make a rupee, the annual importation was valued at about 30,000 rupees.
  In Southeast Asia, when the value of the Siamese tical (baht) was about half a troy ounce of silver (about 16 grams), the value of the cowrie (Thai: เบี้ย bia) was fixed at ​¹⁄₆₄₀₀ Baht. In modern Thailand, it refers to interest paid for the use of money borrowed or deposited; bia wat เบี้ยหวัด is a military pension.
  In Orissa, India, cowry (popularly known as kaudi) was used as currency until 1805 when it was abolished by the British East India Company. This was one of the causes of the Paik Rebellion in 1817.
caption: Chinese shell money, 16-18th century BCE
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