Cowrie
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Cowrie or cowry is the common name for a group of small to large sea snails in the family Cypraeidae.
Cypraea caputserpentis
Cowrie (Cypraea chinensis) with fully extended mantle
Shells of various species of cowrie; all but one have their anterior ends pointing towards the top of this image.
A 1742 drawing of shells of the money cowrie, Monetaria moneta
Shell money
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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 s
Cowrie
…Cowrie shells have held cultural, economic, and ornamental significance in various cultures. The cowrie was the shell most widely used worldwide as shell money. It is most abundant in the Indian Ocean and was collected near the Maldive Islands, Sri Lanka and the Indian Malabar coast, Borneo and other East…
Antiquities of the southern Indigenous, particularly of the Georgia tribes (1873)
This 1845 British illustration gives an artist's impression of traders in Africa using cowry shells as money.
Chinese shell money, 16th–8th centuries BC.