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1 Cowrie Kaudi
| Issuer | |
|---|---|
| Year | 1000 BC - 1825 AD |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 2 g |
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| Obverse description | Natural dorsal surface of the Cypraea moneta (money cowrie) shell, presenting a smooth, ovoid, convex form with a characteristic pale cream to buff patina. The shell displays its natural toothed aperture on the ventral side and a small perforation near the apex, consistent with use as a strung currency medium. No inscriptions, legends, or mint marks appear on any surface, as the cowrie functioned as an intrinsic-value proto-currency. Cowries of this type circulated as legal tender in ancient India and remained in active use in Bengal and Orissa (Odisha) into the early nineteenth century, with a recorded exchange rate of 2,560 cowries to 1 Rupee as of 1821. |
|---|---|
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| Mintage | ND (1000 BC - 1825 AD) |
| Additional information |
Cypraea moneta shells were harvested primarily in the Maldives and traded across the Indian Ocean in quantities that, by some medieval accounts, reached into the hundreds of millions annually. The Bengali market alone absorbed such volumes that Maldivian rulers structured their entire state economy around controlled export. Cowries circulated as money across sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and parts of China for longer than any metal coinage system in history — the Chinese graph for "money" itself derives from a pictograph of the shell.
In Bengal, British colonial administrators formally demonetized cowries in 1825, the date that closes this specimen's attribution window.