That also took me to yet another strange coin find: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_penny a 9th century Norse coin found in the US which might indicate that the Vikings were present in Maine.
But they were... as a child I remember reading about Erik the red who founded the first settlement in Greenland and whose son Luke or Lief made trips to what they called Vinland
The Vinland landings and artifacts have all been further north than Maine (in Newfoundland). So finding Norse artifacts in Maine means either they also traveled to Maine or some of their things got traded/taken south by someone.
I wouldn't read too much into these "odd" finds. Doing so forgets a basic principal of archology/anthropology: The people of the past weren't all that different than us. Go to any city in the world today and you will find ancient coins from all over the world. An ancient roman coin in Vancouver doesn't mean that ancient Romans visited Canada. Even if that coin is found buried in a landfill, we would assume it traveled to Vancouver recently and is tied to a museum, collector or tourist. Why then do we think any different when we dig up a coin from the past? People and coins moved about then just as they do today.
How about the inverse: a modern coin found buried in an ancient location? That would be DoctorWho level "odd".
I imagine that the molding process -- being more exact -- could have helped minimise coin clipping. It makes me wonder why Western societies didn't adopt it.
Going by the same wikipedia article, there is a strong suggestion that the coins were fiat, not particularly valued for their materials:
> Minting and copper extraction were centrally controlled, and private casting was punishable by death. For the first time we find regulations giving the prescribed coinage alloy: 83% copper, 15% lead, and 2% tin. Previously the percentages used seem to have been on an ad hoc basis. Actual analyses show rather less copper than this.
> By 660, deterioration of the coinage due to forgery had become a problem.
(Why is this evidence that the value of the coins didn't come from their material? Because in that case, there would be no reason to control their production, nor would "forgery" really be an applicable concept.)
This should tend to keep down coin clipping, since you end up clipping off small shavings of a metal that isn't worth much in the first place. Why bother?
I'm not an expert, but my understanding is the opposite.
One reason for trading with coins rather than raw metals at this time was that minted coins coins could be expected to contain a standardised weight and metal mixture, as long as the mint managed to curtail forgeries. If someone gave you a gold coin, the imprint of the mint gave you a guarantee it actually was pure gold (rather than a cheaper mixture of gold and silver, as an example).
The problem with forgeries was that forgers made their money by minting coins that weighted less or contained cheaper metals, and then passing them off as genuine.
If this goes on for long enough, the coinage deteriorates, since the large amount of fake coins in circulation means that a coin could no longer be expected to contain its specific value in precious metal.
> One reason for trading with coins rather than raw metals at this time was that minted coins coins could be expected to contain a standardised weight and metal mixture, as long as the mint managed to curtail forgeries.
This is sort of half-true. Non-fiat coins trade slightly above the value of their weight for a few reasons, primarily the convenience they offer. And there certainly is a theory that minted coins could be expected to contain a standardised weight and metal mixture.
But they couldn't really. Just look at that extract -- the Tang dynasty published laws detailing the metal mixture its coins contained. It did not bother to follow or even approximate those laws.
Here's a description of the bronze currency of Seleucid Persia:
> coin weights were not controlled to nearly the same extent as for gold and silver. An analysis of the bronze coinage of Seleukos I from Seleukia-Tigris in Newell shows weights ranging from 2.08-4.55 grams for one-unit pieces, 5.17-9.24 grams for two-unit pieces, and 8.94-16.72 grams for four-unit pieces.
> The very wide range of weights, on average more than 25 per cent about a mean, cannot be due to wear. Thus, when a bronze coin circulated, its value was probably known by its approximate size and not by its weight.
Here's the much more strictly controlled silver:
> Under Antiochos IV, a reduction of tetradrachm weight is noted between the first and second Antioch series from mainly in the region of 16.90-17.19 grams to mainly in the region of 16.50-16.79 grams, a reduction of about 2 per cent, which can only have been due to an administrative decision. This came at a time when competing coinages had also experienced weight reductions
> There was, of course, not only a question of weight, since, in order to achieve a greater profit, one might also reduce the silver content. Until Antiochos IV, purity of 94-95 per cent silver was still maintained in tetradrachms, but a debasement commenced slowly with Alexander Balas (91 per cent purity) and reached quite low levels of silver by the first century BC (65 per cent purity).
Why did the subjects of the Seleucids tolerate this? They weren't given a choice, and we have a record of their complaints:
> Now one can perhaps understand a passage in the Astronomical Diary of 274 BC. After reference had been made to the collection of 'silver, cloth, goods, and utensils [?]' by the satrap of Babylon to help the king (Antiochos I) pursue the war against the Ptolemies in northern Syria, the Diary continues: 'That year, purchases in Babylon and the [other] cities were made with copper coins of Ionia.'
> The small-silver coinage had apparently been collected by the authorities to help finance the war [because Greek mercenaries required payment in silver], probably in exchange for bronze, and the inhabitants were now compelled to use the distasteful (to them) bronze coinage, distasteful because it was a purely token currency introduced into an area which had possessed a long tradition of exchange based on the value of precious metal
We may also observe that Chinese coins fill the same economic role as Seleucid bronze coins, being used to transact in small amounts. Large-scale commerce in China was done in unminted silver.
This is a tangent, but I find it pretty interesting that there was really no alternative to fiat value for the Seleucid bronze coins. The problem is that Greek money terms were fixed: 6 obols to the drachm; 20 drachms to the stater.
But the Seleucids minted obols in bronze, drachms in silver, and staters in gold. The value of each metal is set by market forces -- they move independently of each other. For silver, this wasn't really an issue -- it was the reference currency, so a rise in the value of silver just meant that the price of everything fell. One drachm of silver stayed one drachm of silver.
But a change in the value of bronze caused problems. A bronze obol was always notionally worth one sixth of a silver drachm. But if the value of bronze had risen since the obol was minted, the coin might be worth more for its material than for its face value.
The only real solution is the one that was implemented; bronze coins contained much less bronze than their face value called for. At most one metal in a multimetallic coin system can be valued by weight.
My guess is China is standardizing and mass-producing coins, and molding is easier for quality control. Hammering is more straightforward for smaller-scale productions. Furthermore, China frequently forbids civilians to have weapons, while in Europe there are many weaponsmiths, and people are more familiar with this craftmanship.
And is there is usually no face on coins in China. It's really nothing for some corner of the word to disappear after ages compared to making "kings" losing their nose and ears.
The square-shaped hole in the center - people usually use a thread to string together the coins and use them as belts. It's much easier to have holes in the center if it is molded, though I'm not sure if the hole is the motivation of molding or the consequence of it.
In Chinese culture, 'Round' represents heaven (sky), and 'Square' represents earth (human). The most common way to carry it is either with a pocket or on a string attached to your belt. you will need to unbelt to pay for a bread if it is your belt, it is not that convenient. Another thing is that the face of the King is less important than his alias (a name given to represent a person's virtue). The only one put his face on coin was from 1915, influenced by foreign coins probably.
That relies on the assumption that English locals were clueless about the outside world - on the contrary, intercontinental trade networks were especially established around this time. The nobility would've been importing goods from all around Europe, the Mediterranean, and even China through the Silk Road link. While knowledge about what was "over there" probably varied, I would suppose locals would at least be aware of "lands to the East" and view the coin in that context.
祥符 xiáng fú (auspicious sign) referring to an era during the reign of Emperor Zhenzong of Song and 元寶 yuán bǎo being a common way to mark coins (寶 bǎo meaning treasure)
... except the name of the modern currency is derived from 圓 yuán, meaning "circle", and 元 is only used as a simplified version because they're homophones in Standard Mandarin. According to Zhengzhang Shangfang's reconstruction, their Middle Chinese pronunciations were /ŋʉɐn/ 元 and /ɦˠiuᴇn/ 圓 respectively.
There is a surviving coin minted for the 8th century King Offa of Mercia (in what is now central England) with the Shahadah on it in badly-spelled Arabic, even though Mercia had been Christian for over a century when the coin was minted.
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4th century Roman coins found in a Japanese castle: https://theconversation.com/how-did-4th-century-roman-coins-...
African coins found in Australia(!): https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/history-cultu...