178 Shells as evidence of the Migrations. 
sizes of small coins, bean-shaped (in the fashion of the 
AEginewtan and Lydian coins of 750-700 B.C.) and inscribed 
with their respective weights. These coins are known in 
native numismatics as metallic cowries, //o-per ¢sien, 
because their shape suggested that of the once useful 
little shells they superseded. They have also received 
other quaint appellatives, as ‘Ghost-heads, A we-tou ; 
‘Ghost-faces,’ A wet-dien ; and ‘ Ants’-noses money,’ Y-p7 
tsten. The introduction of this and other metallic 
currencies caused the circulation of cowries to disappear 
gradually in eastern China, and in B.C. 221, the king of 
Ts'in, having assumed the title of She Hwang-ti, “the 
first universal Emperor,” issued an order forbidding hence- 
forth the use of gems, pearis, tortoise-shells, cowries and 
tin for currency purposes. Cowries, however, still con- 
tinued to be regarded as objects of appreciation ; and in 
B.C. 179 we find the king of Nan-yueh sending as presents 
to the Chinese emperors 500 purple cowries™ along with 
other gifts. At the end of the First Han dynasty an 
attempt was made by Sin Wang Mang, the usurper (A.D. 
g-22), to revive the circulation of cowries and _tortoise- 
shells, but little success rewarded his efforts. According 
to Lacouperie,’* the cowry currency consisted of five sorts, 
regulated as follows :— 
“(1) The great shells; 4 ¢sa# or inches, 8 fen or toths 
in length ; two of which formed a pang or pair; | 
value 216 cowries. 
(2) The bull shells ; 3 ¢sv, 6 fer in length; a pair of 
which was worth 150 cowries. 
174 Lacouperie, of. cr/., p. 118; also ‘* Catalogue of Chinese Coins in 
British Museum.” London, 1892; and ‘* The Metallic Cowries of Ancient 
China, 600 u.¢.,"" Journ, Koy. Asiatic Soc,, xx., 1888, pp. 428-439. 
178 The money cowry, C. monefa, before becoming fully adult, has 
a deep purple back, and probably these were the objects sent. 
174 Lacouperie, of. cf/., 1892, p. 382. 
—— 
