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
1742 drawing of shells of the money cowry, Monetaria moneta.
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.
Monetaria moneta
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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.
Shell money
…anthropologists. Shell money has appeared in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia. The shell most widely used worldwide as currency was the shell of Monetaria 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…
Monetaria moneta 2
Monetaria moneta 01
The underside of a live Monetaria moneta with the mantle partially retracted
Same specimen, with mantle withdrawn