In some aristocratic tombs of the pre-Qin Dynasty, some colorful shell coins were unearthed, and archaeologists finally believed that they had a special mysterious purpose after research. As for what the hell is going on here? If you want to know, let Xiaobian reveal the secret for you:
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As we all know, the demise of the Qin Dynasty stemmed from the fact that "harsh government is fiercer than tiger", but it is undeniable that as the first great unified dynasty in China's feudal period, the establishment of the Qin State has openly shaped the concept of the unification of the People of The Qin Dynasty, and its contribution to history is also extraordinary. The capital of the Qin state is in Xianyang, which is now the territory of Shaanxi Province, and naturally, there are a large number of tombs of Qin nobles near Xianyang City, which have made important contributions to the study of Qin Dynasty culture in later generations of archaeology.
In the 1980s, China's archaeological community set off a boom in Qin Dynasty archaeology, and Xianyang City in Shaanxi Province naturally became a key excavation object. In the process of excavating the old tombs of the nobles of the Qin Dynasty by archaeologists, they not only found a large number of precious cultural relics, but also found many special "old objects" - colored shell coins. What is Shellcoin? The answer is a currency made of shells.
Shell coin is the most important primitive currency in the primitive period, its types are different, usually the tooth shell is the most popular, the ancients also called it "cargo shell". In the archaeological history of our country, there are also many cases of shell coins, but the land from shell coins is mostly in the ancient tombs of Yin Shang. Of course, it is worth mentioning that the most important component of shell coin itself is calcium carbonate, which is brittle and easy to weather, so it is very troublesome to preserve, and a little attention may cause property losses. As for why the ancients used shells as a currency for trading, historians speculate that it may be because the origin of shells is the ocean, and there were fewer seas in The Huaxia region at that time, so shells became scarce.
Why were the shell coins found in the ancient tombs of qin dynasty nobles dyed in color? Don't natural-colored shell coins have value? Some archaeologists believe that the reason why the color of the shell coins is dyed cyan and black is because they are placed next to the bronze, resulting in the rust green on the bronze being impregnated in the shell, resulting in the difference in their color. But is this really the case? Some archaeologists do not think so, because in the ancient tombs of the Nobles of the Qin Dynasty, they also found some red and blue shell currencies, but the rust color of the bronzes was not red and blue. Because of this, archaeologists believe that the shell coins in front of them must be the five-colored colored color of the Nobles of the Qin Dynasty themselves.
At this time, a question arose, why did the nobles of the Qin Dynasty deliberately dye the shell coins? In this regard, archaeologists have put forward three views. The first is the Five Virtues. The so-called "five virtues" are actually the colors that the ancient emperors in our country blindly worshiped because of superstition. Ancient feudal emperors believed that people have five virtues, that is, "benevolence, righteousness, wisdom and faith", and color also has five virtues, that is, "black and white, yellow, green and blue", the ancient sage Yellow Emperor most worshiped yellow, Xia Dynasty Dayu most worshipped blue, Shang Dynasty Shang Tang worshipped red, and Qin Shi Huang was the most black. It is precisely because of this that the Qin people will dye the shells into colorful colors.
There is also a theory that the dyeing of shells stems from the "five elements". Some archaeologists believe that the Qin Dynasty attached great importance to the five colors such as "gold, wood, water, fire and earth", and defined their respective colors, namely golden yellow, wood cyan, water white, fire red, and earth black, and the color of these shell coins should be coordinated with the five colors of the Qin Dynasty.
The third theory is related to the sacrifice of the nobles of the Qin Dynasty. Archaeologists have proposed that the Qin people believe that shell coins have mysterious powers, not only can carry out rational transactions and promote economic development, but also can communicate between heaven and earth, so that exchanges between people and gods, and different colors of shell coins represent different directions. They believe that when the Qin people make sacrifices, they will use cyan shell coins when sacrificing the east, and red shell coins when sacrificing the south, and so on, and so on, shell coins with colors, all of which have corresponding functions and uses.
Speaking of this, we also believe that behind the excavation of the shell coin, there must be many mysteries hidden by the unknown, but we are even more convinced that as long as we make unremitting efforts, we will be able to uncover the truth.
References: "Past Events of the Qin Dynasty" by Li Zi published by Shaanxi Publishing House
Wen xiucai, editor-in-chief of Wenlan Hairun Studio, written by: Special history writer: Changshan Zhao Zi worm