r/Artifacts

Hi everyone! This is the second set of ancient items from my personal collection that I wanted to share with you.

I acquired this pair of cast bronze imitation cowrie shells (铜贝) roughly thirty years ago from a US-based dealer. According to the original the dealer, they were recovered from Northwest China—the historical heartland of early Chinese metallurgy.

The Birth of Metal Coinage

These pieces represent the absolute beginning of metallic coin usage in human history. Prior to this era, China relied heavily on natural marine sea-snail shells as commodity currency.

During the late Shang Dynasty, rapid business expansion and the growth of inland trade routes caused a massive commercial boom. Merchants pushed deep into the interior, far away from the coastal regions where natural shells were found. Because the supply of real seashells could no longer keep pace with this sudden economic growth, ancient metallurgists revolutionized commerce by casting bronze replicas. This marked the momentous historical leap from bartering natural objects to minting metallic money.

Visual & Structural Highlights

Images 1 & 3 (Front Profile): Displays the convex outer shell profile with distinct, serrated "tooth-like" central slits modeled directly after natural cowries.

Images 2 & 4 (Hollow Reverse): Shows the hollowed-out backsides, highlighting a striking, crusty combination of green malachite and deep azurite blue crystallization. This mineralization has remained perfectly stable over my three decades of ownership.

Suspension Holes: Note the cleanly cast circular holes at the apex. Early merchants used these to string multiple bronze shells together into standardized currency units called strings (péng 朋).

Fun linguistic fact for history buffs: Because of this specific currency origin, the modern Chinese character radical for wealth, property, and trade is still written today as 貝 (bèi)—a literal drawing of the cowrie shells I am holding here!

I would love to hear from other collectors who collected these types of coins. Please share and display your coins for us to enjoy and appreciate.

Found this in Calhoun County Illinois in a field I worked and broadcast beans in for wildlife.

First find that I felt was actually worked. I’m guessing with the thick side it’s broken. Was think a scraper of some sort? Any insight would be awesome.

A few days ago, I posted a photo showing the absolute dawn of metal currency in China: the Shang Dynasty bronze cowrie shells (铜贝). Today, I want to share the next major evolution in my personal collection: three beautiful Western Han Dynasty Wu Zhu (五铢) coins covered in a gorgeous, crusty green malachite patina.

The King of Chinese Currency

Introduced by the legendary Emperor Wu of Han in 118 BC, the Wu Zhu coin is arguably one of the most successful coin designs in human history. While the earlier Ban Liang coin started the "round coin, square hole" tradition, it was the Wu Zhu that perfected it.This exact denomination was minted continuously across multiple dynasties for nearly 700 years until the Tang Dynasty finally replaced it in 621 AD. Because hundreds of billions were cast over the centuries, standard specimens are highly accessible today, making them the absolute cornerstone of any ancient Chinese coin collection (古泉收藏).

Why They Were Minted: Fighting InflationBefore Emperor Wu stepped in, the Han Dynasty relied on the Ban Liang (半两) system inherited from the Qin Dynasty. However, due to political instability and private minting, the early Han Ban Liangs suffered severe debasement. They grew thinner and lighter, completely losing the public's trust—some weighed under 1 gram.To fix the broken economy, Emperor Wu centralized all minting authority strictly to the capital city. He introduced the Wu Zhu, which literally translates to "Five Zhu" (a unit of weight equal to about 3.25 grams). By strictly enforcing this weight standard and adding a raised rim to prevent people from shaving bronze off the edges, he successfully stabilized the empire's economy.

Features of My Specimens (The Obverse)

If you look closely at the close-up of the front sides:

The Inscription: Read right-to-left, you can see 五 (Wu) on the right side and 铢 (Zhu) on the left.

The Calligraphy: The "五" character shows the classic Western Han stylistic trait where the upper and lower crossbars curve sharply inward toward each other, looking almost like an hourglass.

The Patina: All three have developed a rich, deep uncleaned green malachite and reddish cuprite patina over two millennia in the soil.

The Flip Side: Casting Marks (The Reverse)

I’ve also included a photo of the reverse sides. As you can see, they are completely blank, which is typical for this era. What makes the reverses fascinating is the texture. Because these were cast in molds (usually made of clay, stone, or bronze) rather than struck with a hammer and die, you can see the rough, porous surface left behind by the molten metal cooling down over 2,000 years ago. The slight variations in the inner square holes show how they were broken off from the casting "trees" and filed down by hand by ancient mint workers.

I love these pieces because they physically hold the history of an empire trying to stabilize its economy. What do you think of the contrast between the thick bronze cowries and the flat cash coins? Do you hold any early Chinese cast bronze in your collection?

I’ve had this for 40 years. It’s about 12” long, 9” tall. Very heavy for its size. Found in Texas circa 1992.

Found in a storage unit. If it is historical, I’d like to get it restored.

I’m hoping this .45 bullet that I found in the tidepools along the coast of Dieppe France is from the Dieppe Raid of 1942 but how can I tell how old it is for sure?

Feel free to request more pictures/angles/videos

Found on the beach near Tampa, Florida, USA.

I was rockhounding on the Snoqualmie river in Washington for agates and found this guy! Anything of interest / relevance to this sub?

Hi everyone, sharing the 7th sets of my collection. I acquired this pair 30 years ago and have never found a single match. They are Song/Jin Dynasty Cizhou-style ceramic figures of equestrian players drumming on horseback. When you compare the pair, you can see they are completely different also:

The Riders' Faces and Heads: The rider on the right has a distinctly larger head, a taller crown, and much broader features. The rider on the left has a more elongated, rounded head with simpler features.

The Drums and Arm Placement: The rider on the left holds a smaller drum tightly against their chest with arms closely tucked in. The rider on the right holds a wider, more pronounced drum further out, creating a completely different arm posture.

The Horses' Heads and Manes: The horse on the left is sculpted with its head tucked lower and a smoother profile. The horse on the right has a more upright neck, decorated with prominent, thick black brushstrokes marking out the mane.

The Baseboards: The left figurine sits on a rounded, oval-shaped baseboard. The right figurine sits on a more angular, wedge-shaped platform with a sharper point at the front.

What makes them uniquely fascinating when compared with the other Song Cizhou figurines from the internet.

• Tang Structure, Song Craft: In typical Song Cizhou wares, figurines are almost never attached to flat, unglazed baseboards. However, these figures feature solid, flat, unglazed platform bases—a trait explicitly characteristic of Tang Dynasty tomb figurines.

 * 100% Manually Hand-Sculpted: Looking closely at the side and back, these are entirely handmade rather than mold-made. The rugged pinching, hand-sculpted limbs, and artisanal imperfections highlight the spontaneous nature of Northern Chinese folk pottery.

• The Base Evidence: The underside shows deep, rustic manual trimming marks and authentic, natural soil patina accumulated over centuries.

Found in flower bed in NE Pennsylvania!

Found in central Texas. I live approximately 30 minutes north of the Gault site in Florence, TX. The Chisolm Trail went straight through my town. I have found many flakes, cores, and a few hammer stones, but have yet to find any arrows.

Boss claims that these were stored in Yemen by saddam during the gulf war. Are these artifacts real, because I assume there is minimal documentation on these given the circumstances

Greeting programs!

Malt monkey your helpful Australian archaeologist here. Having spent a decade in the field in Western Australia and recording around ~1 million flaked stone tools, i thought I'd share some useful diagrams to help those trying to identify flake stone artefacts.

While formal tools, such as points, blades, adzes, scrapers, hand axes, awls, and many others can be easier to identify as artefacts due to their tertiary retouch and shaping, simple percussion flaked tools are by far the most common form of flake stone tools, and often form the base from which formal tools are produced.

Flaked stone can come in many forms and while textbook cases are typically easy to identify, flaked stone artefacts often aren't textbook. Stone can be imperfect, leading to faults and fissures, flakes that break during or after manufacture, are affected by age and water, and lots of other factors that lead to flakes being much harder to identify.

For those looking for an exceptional academic resource for stone artefacts, including the physics behind production techniques, "A Record in Stone" by Simon Holdaway and Nicola Stern is great. It is based largely on Australian stone artefact technologies (Aboriginal Australians), but as stone tool production is based on physics, it is still relevant to other stone artefact cultures.

Happy to answer any questions people have.

Hello,

I found this one a long time ago in the Rhine river, Germany. Now rediscovered after going through my childhood stuff and wondering if it really is a prehistoric knife or not. Circa 8 cm long.

Good morning reddit, I found this while out looking for arrowheads in a creek bed. Any help or info is appreciated. It has definitely been worked by someone, it appears to be sandstone(very common here NE Oklahoma).

Found in a remote spot but close to a lightly used dirt road. Some evident of old ranching going on. Post holder? Ancient something er other?

Was weed eating with a super old thing and the universe helped me find this. Ohio

Recently came across this while cleaning out a house of someone who had passed their family asked everything to be thrown away or kept if i wanted, we asked the family about this and they said they didn’t know about it or what to do with it and said we could have it but i’m unsure of what it is and googling it has been no help and hopefully this is the right place to ask what this is and if i should keep this or what not. any advice would be appreciated

I found these railway spikes in my yard a few days ago when digging some space in for a new flower bed. They were very heavily corroded but they’ve been soaking in evapo rust for 24 hours or so? And they’ve cleaned up a bit. Found in Grande Prairie, Alberta on a property right behind the train tracks. Does anyone have an idea on dating? Do these look hand-forged or more modern? Any info appreciated, thanks! 😊