Eastern Zhou Dynasty Warring states period (400- 300BC) - Liang state bronze spade during the Zhou Dynasty. "An Yi Er Jin" obverse with "An" in reverse. Minted in An Yi city, capital of Liang state. Got this some years ago but never managed to get a decent photo until now..
Gorgeous piece! So the character for "Middle Kingdom", which is how I recognize the modern name of "China" today, was used so early in their history? Amazing.
Thanks.. actually the term middle kingdom was a loosely used term through history .. in fact it is more pre modern to modern times.. the character you see there is not 中 as in middle kingdom but rather the archaic written form for 安 AN. The character is used for representing the city name of AN YI 安邑. In the past, to refer to China is often by the Dynasty name such as Great Tang, Great Win, Great Han etc. Even during the republic times China was referred to as Zhong Hua 中华。 Hua representing flower or the Chinese whilst Zhong meaning central. So instead of middle kingdom, it was officially Central Chinese Nation.
WOW!! That's such a cool, interesting and unusual 'piece'!! Were they used as currency? How large are they? Can you provide/measurements and weights---and relative values??
Yes.. these were used as currency. By this time each warring state has their own currency equivalents. This piece is around 40 x 60mm. I don't have my scale with me but I estimate this around 15~20g
I have a couple spades to toss in @Loong Siew CHINA - ZHOU Dynasty, 1122-255 BC square foot spade 350-250 BC AN YANG - 3 lines rev bronze 31x52mm 7.45g H3.184 S13+ China Zhou Dyn 1122-255 BC AE Small Sq Ft Spade An Yang 30x45mm 5.27g H3.182 S-13+
Very nice example! I am still needing one of these for my collection. The interesting thing about these heavy spades is that they usually explicitly stated their denomination in terms of weight. Your coin is denominated "Er (2) Jin" where a jin was about 16g. Your coin in theory should weigh about 32g, though being a little bit underweight in the norm. If the weight is really 15-20g, I highly doubt its authenticity as an original official coin. Here are my 2 arch-foot heavy spades: Liang Chong Hua Jin Wu Shi Er Dang Lie Yu Yi Jin
Like I said I do not have a scale to obtain the exact weight. Nonetheless the providence of this coin is solid. Also, I would not be too confident of the weight matching the said denomination either. For instance the Ban Liang are never close to their denominative weight.
