Mallory and Irvine Mt. Everest climb 100th anniversary - June 8 1924

On June 8, 1924 the British climbers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine started from a camp in Tibet and disappeared into the clouds around the summit ridge of Mt. Everest.

The book Into the Silence - The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis (published 2011) is about the three British mountaineering expeditions in 1921, 1922, and 1924 to Tibet whose purpose was to climb Mount Everest. All three expeditions failed to climb the mountain and the last one resulted in the disappearance of two of the climbers, Mallory and Irvine.

Some Tibetans opposed the expeditions for religious reasons and some wondered why the British were trying to do something so dangerous to themselves.

In Tibetan, there is no word for a mountain summit; the very place the British so avidly sought, their highest goal, did not even exist in the language of their Sherpa porters.

Among the "Tigers", men handpicked by Norton and Bruce [expedition leaders] for the most difficult work at the highest elevations, there were many who believed that the British were actually searching for treasure a golden statue of a cow, perhaps a yak, rumored to reside at the highest point, which they would pillage and melt down into coins.​

The British had to use Tibetan silver coins, similar to this one, to pay the porters to carry their equipment in 1921 and 1922.


Tibet silver tangka made in the 1920's
Base silver, 27mm, 3.60gm

In 1924 things were different:

Between them they drove ten mules laden only with money. The previous year [1923], the Tibetan authorities had recalled all of the silver in the country, forcing the expedition to rely on copper currency, seventy-five thousand coins altogether.


Tibet copper shokang made in the 1920's
Copper, 23mm, 5.18gm

 

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Reading the sources really throws up a lot of the little details, Tibet recalled the tangka in 1923 for example. News to me for sure.. I've only got two items dating to the '20s - give them an outing for once.

An extremely knackered example of a 5 Tangka banknote dating to 1912, these were kept in house shrines for years - to bring wealth to the house I assume. Most survivors are in similar condition.

The following coin is a silver 5 shokang minted 1915. Mekyi mint (formerly occupied by the exiled Chinese resident I gather), weight 9.55g.
The 1923 recall would of course have taken these coins out of circulation as well.