A mint which mass-produced 'spade' coins as early as 640 BC has been discovered in China. The story is coming out this morning through several outlets. This report from the UK's Daily Mail requires no registration (I hate paywalls): https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...Worlds-oldest-coin-mint-discovered-China.html
Always be careful on dating of coins from China. Its a national pride thing, they always want to claim to be the first and best at everything. Almost all experts in the west state Chinese coins were a tad later than Greek coins, so this would not be the worlds first mint. However, in my mind it does not matter, both evolved independently, so both are tremendous accomplishments for both civilizations. Btw, this is meant as no disrespect to anyone Chinese. I am talking about normal country pride, and academic papers I have read that I do not feel care who is first, only care about the facts. Btw, Sardis mint has been thoroughly excavated, and I would say this is earlier for a mint age.
When I was an Archaeology student in the 1980s, I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the origins of agriculture in SE Asia. During my research, I came across a number of papers by Chinese "archaeologists" from the 1960s and 1970s that were pure socialist propaganda. It was really painful wading through the stuff. Thank goodness the voltage has been turned way down over the years and better work is being done in China today.
FWIW, I've noticed the same thing from many Indian scholars as well. Ask about the Gandharan "bent bar" shatamana and whether they date to before 600 BC or after 400 BC, and whether they are a purely Indigenous invention, or introduced by the Achaemenids as a local equivalent to the stater/Croesid. Similarly, I've seen equally convincing theories tying Brahmi to both Aramaic and the Indus Script. It's important to remember the impact that pride and propaganda has on both the conscious and subconscious mind. Interestingly, I have seen estimates for the inception of Chinese spade and knife coins ranging from over 1,000 BC to as late as 400 BC.
1000% agree sir. I have read the same. I am actually torn about the origins of Indian numismatics. I know it was introduced fairly early though Afghanistan, and how most early Indian coinage was in NW India close to this. However, it is of such different fabric than western coinage I am unsure if its a local derivation of Persian coinage or if they were just vaguely aware of this but invented their own themselves. Indian numismatics is where I would love definitive dating to clear this up. Right now I tend to lean in the independent invention due to the difference in fabric. Btw, I was just talking to some Ecuadorians at lunch today. I wish they took more pride in inventing coins in the Americas under the Incans. The Azteca learned from the Incans how to make coins through trade with them. Both probably would have followed the Chinese model of coin development had the Spanish not interrupted them.
Don't have a picture here. I wrote a couple of years ago the Incans copied the Azteca, but I was wrong. I now believe the Aztecs copied the Incans. One innovation the Incans came up with was denominations. I don't know if they made other sizes, but the group I purchased had three clearly different sizes. The smallest about 1.5 wide by 2cm. Medium about 2.5 by 3.5 cm. Largest around 3.5 by 5cm. I am not aware of any Aztec pieces coming in denominations. The are typical spade shape. The Incans living in Ecuador made these. I wish you luck finding any. After I heard about them, took me a decade to find any for sale anywhere, and I was lucky Agora auctions listed one group. I bid like 8 times over what I ended up paying for them. While the quantity is large, unfortunately many are fused together from being buried together. They still have old strings around some groups, which I believe may be original from the burial 500 years ago.
You want to go back and read the original article... https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...age-in-china/178ECC2B245A017BF684BE1EFC732BD1 They found the smelting pits and some coin fragments in association (the site is 70x40m), so you can radiocarbon date the ash.
I read that the site was dated using radiometric dating methods. That gave it a lot more credibility in my opinion. So I guess I officially have the earliest coin on this site.
