[인류중요발전사] Ancient Coins of Countries

[cello]

Around 675 B.C., the Lydians of Babylon began to mint the first coins in the world from gold, silver and a natural alloy of the two called electrum, Certainly, metal had been used before this time in trade in the form of ingots, but the Lydians were the first to turn metal into money. What distinguishes a coin from a simple ingot is that it is a small, easily handleable amount of metal of a fixed weight that is formed into a flat shape onto which is impressed a recognizable symbol that serves to identify the coin’s origin.

The earliest coins were far too valuable to have entered into general circulation (they must have been used for the conveyance of large amounts of value), and it is only in the fifth century B,C. that the Greeks began to mint what we might call “small change.”

The coinage of China has emerged in Chou dynasty and has not really changed (until very recently) for the last 2250 years. With the exception of some spade, knife and bridge-shaped pieces, most Chinese coins are cast bronze (AF), uniface, round and have a square hole in the middle. The odd shape of the ‘ant nose’ specimens suggest

a substitution of the cowrie shell, once used as currency in China. There is a tradition that they were inserted into the noses of the dead to keep out the ants. They may or may not be real ‘coins’,

From the later part of the 16th. century until the early 20th century, tremendous numbers of a wide variety of foreign silver coins circulated throughout China.The more important were Spanish colonial Cobs and Pillar Dollars, Dutch Ducatons and Mexican Eagle Dollars. Countless pieces were chopmarked. A frequently asked question is:
Why did Chinese chop those coins?

When foreign silver coins came into China 4 centuries ago, the Chinese believed they were a kind of silver ingot, and eval‎uated them by weight and silver content not by face value. They weighed every sycee, and silver coins—a “quasi sycee”—weighed them with scales and assayed their purity by their experience and eyesight, chops and even chisels. Chopping, a part of Chinese daily life in dealing with all their measured currencies, was not just aiming at silver coins, but also used with sycee.

Milled silver coins were a brand new experience to Chinese, and their expertise in authenticating silver sycee did not extend to modem circular coinage. When first learning to use this fancy silver currency, many Chinese were cheated by counterfeits with low silver content, such as silver plated copper, or in many cases, hollowed out silver coins refilled with base metal such as lead.

Thai coinage, along with that of most of Southeast Asia, traces its origin to the Funan Kingdom, which lasted from the first to the sixth century, whose people were Buddhist with a strong Brahmin influence. The Kingdom of Funan was established as a Hindu (Indian) kingdom in the Mekong delta area to foster trade between Hindu and parts of Asia, particularly China. It was at Oc-Eo, the port city of Funan, that coinage first appeared in Southeast Asia during the first few centuries of the Christian era. rfl.as coinage was based on the Hindu models of silver coins, and throughout the region’s history, most coins have been local variations of this early Indian silver coinage. The coinage of the Funan era was silver, molded and hammered in a method very similar to that of sixteenth-century England. One side of a Funan coin shows the sun; the reverse side shows Vishnu’s hair, a drum, the sun and the moon. These coins, apparently divided to make small changes, are sometimes found cut in pieces. They were widely distributed from present-day Burma to Vietnam.

The ticat commonly called “bullet money”, was the principal money of Thailand from around the 13th to the mid 19th century. Small silver bars known as “tiger tongues” were another of the early monies of Southeast Asia.

The Kingdom of Laan Chang (Laos and northeast rmailand) used silver tiger-tongue money sometimes called “leech money” because it resembles a leech found in Thailand. However, the foreigners preferred to use the term of “bar money”. Brass versions were ãhanged for the silver version. Governors in southern provinces issued tin-based coins, similar to Chinese coins, with Chinese, Arabic and Thai inscriptions.

Gold coins of Great Britain in late 1700s. The obverse features a young bust of Queen Victoria (b1819-d1901).VICTORTA DEl GRATIA (Victoria by Grace of God) surrounds the bust with the date 1873 at the bottom. The reverse has the Ensigns Armorial of the United Kingdom contained in a plain shield, surmounted by the Royal Crown and encircled with a laurel wreath, with the inscription BRITANNIARUM REGINA FID DEF, (British Queen, Defender of the Faith) having the united rose, thistle and sham.- rock placed under the shield. The obverse was designed by William W. Wyon and the reverse by J. B. Merlen. This was a special type that had the die number under the bow at the bottom. There are many possible reasons for using die numbers. ‘The most obvious is to be able to check and control the quality of the dies, particularly if experiments were being conducted into die wear, It is possible that different methods of treating and hardening dies may have been carried out, and die numbering would have helped to ascertain which methods of processing were most successful, Other possible reasons include quality and security control during production.

Anciently Chinese coins were cast using day molds, but from the early 600’s the use of the sand mold method became common. Japan used the sand mold method from the very be-j ginning of its minting history in the late 600’s. The sand mold uses two frames filled with fine grain wetted sand, and a set of carefully manufactured “seed coins” or “mother coins”.

‘The coin free is an example of a Japanese Bunkyuu tsuuhou of 1863. It consists of 42 coins cast on two branches. The coins are all tilted about 30 degrees to the left or right but there is one exception, a coin rotated about 85 degrees to the left. What is noticable with all coins is that a corner of the center hole points toward where the molten metal will enter, This placement probably encouraged flow better than presenting the flat side of a coin hole to where the metal came in. The central bars have a straight triangular shape suggesting that a bar was first inserted into the front side of the sand mold to make the path. ‘The smaller paths from bar to coin are more rough and suggest that they were carved into the sand by an artisan. The paths are flat and level with the bar on the reverse side, that the little paths were cut after the impression of the coins were made in the sand mold, and cut on one of the two halves of the mold, in this case the front.

(THE END)

[둥글레]

고맙습니다.열공!

[버들]

감사합니다. 어렵군요.

[christina ko]

thanks

[거북이750407]

항상 좋은 자료 제공에 감사드립니다.

[두나미스]

아쉽네요2월 23일 시카고 아카데믹 리딩으로 나온 것과 거의같네요. 맨 앞이 없고 뒤는 약간 다른문장이 추가 된 것같아요

[음하하]

제가 시험 본 지문이네요.. ㅠㅠ

[snapple]

I really thank kelly and cello for your efforts. I hope everybody in this cafe has good luck on Ielts!!

[anna0828]

오늘도 엄청 도움받고갑니다. 매번 인사를 못해서 미안하구요, 모두들 열심히 하세요.

[바니]

마지막 paragraph 는 잘 이해가 안 되네요

[jenny! can do it.]

감사해요! 얼른 점수받고 싶어요!

[숭숭숭]

감사합니다! 항상 도움만 받고 죄송하네요. 축복받으실꺼예요~~

[가뉘]

감사,,,,,,

[serena]

어려워요...이걸 어째...

[suny610]

감사해요.... 이럭으로 공부해야 겠네요/...

[로스차일드]

와우,,,단어가 생각보다 어려워요...정말 열심히 해야겠는데요 ㅎㅎ

[하늘가득 바람이]

감사합니다. 잘보겠습니다.

[마스터]

감사합니다.

[과일장수]

Thx

[그랑브르]

감사합니다.

[자유인생]

감사합니다.