Author: Gary Ashkenazy

Chinese archaeologists working at an ancient stone pagoda in Hainan Province (海南省) recently made a discovery which will help to establish the date when the pagoda was originally built.

An article in the October 27, 2011 edition of the Haikou Evening News (海口晚报) describes the restoration work being done at the Rufu Stone Pagoda (儒符石塔) near Haikou.  The pagoda is distinctive because it is built from volcanic rock but has fallen into disrepair over the centuries.

Few records exist concerning the history of the pagoda with the oldest references dating to the Ming Dynasty.

The pagoda is believed to have been built during the late Song Dynasty but no historical evidence exists to prove this.

The Buddhist pagoda is one of the oldest structures in the province and its design reflects Indian influences.

While working at the base of the pagoda a worker discovered a hidden vault.

Inside the vault was a stone tortoise-shaped box.

According to Mr. Wang Daxin (王大新), the Director of the Haikou City Bureau of Cultural Relics (海口市文物局), the tortoise box contained a number of items.

In the box were more that seventy Chinese bronze coins.  Remarkably, the coins still retain remnants of the cord with which they had been bound together.

The majority of the coins have the inscription tai ping tong bao (太平通宝) which means they were cast during the years 976-989 of the reign of Emperor Tai Zong of the Song Dynasty.

Coins are always considered an important find because they can be accurately dated.  Since the majority of the coins are tai ping tong bao, it is most likely that the pagoda was built during this same time period.

Among the most puzzling artifacts found in the box, however, were six metal tablets.  Originally thought to be made of tin, after cleaning they were found to be made of silver.  Unfortunately, three of the tablets were too fragile to be cleaned so they are being kept in their original state.  This also means that their inscriptions cannot be read.

Of the other three silver tablets, two have auspicious connotations.  One has the inscription fu de chang shou (福德长寿) which translates as “good fortune, virtue and a long life”.  Another has the inscription qian yuan heng li zhen (乾元亨利贞) which is a cryptic phrase from the ancient Chinese “Book of Changes” (I Ching 易经).

The last silver tablet, displayed above, has the inscription wang gang da sheng (王刚大圣).  The experts are still trying to understand the meaning of this inscription.

Mr. Wang made clear that while the archaeologists continue to study the cultural relics found at the site, the work to restore the pagoda to its original state is continuing with completion of the project expected by the end of this year.

Lu Xun (鲁迅 1881-1936) is recognized as one of the greatest Chinese writers of the 20th Century and the founder of modern Chinese literature.

Few people, however, are aware of Lu Xun’s contributions to Chinese numismatics.  He was not only a collector of ancient Chinese coins but he also wrote a manuscript annotating Chinese coins from the 7th to the 17th Century.

According to a Xinhua news dispatch, this treatise on Chinese coins written by Lu Xun is now being published for the first time in commemoration of the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

The manuscript was written in 1913 while Lu Xun was working for the Ministry of Education in Peking (Beijing).  During that time, he began to study ancient books on Chinese coins and he frequently went to Liulichang (琉璃厂) to buy old Chinese coins for his own collection.

Lu Xun was familiar with the famous work on Chinese coins known as Quan Zhi (泉志) written by Hong Zun (洪遵) in 1149 during the Song Dynasty.  The Quan Zhi has the honor of being recognized as the world’s oldest extant coin book.

The Quan Zhi annotated the various forms of Chinese money from the very earliest times to the Song Dynasty.  Lu Xun wanted to supplement this great work.  In his manuscript, he wrote about Chinese coins beginning with those of the Tang and Five Dynasties and ending with the coins of the Ming Dynasty.  He cataloged 1,311 different coins from this time period thus adding an additional 700 years to the field of numismatic research.

But Lu Xun’s involvement in Chinese numismatics went even further for he was actually involved in the design of one of the coins of the time.

According to an entry in Lu Xun’s diary dated August 28, 1912, he along with two colleagues, Xu Shouchang (许寿裳) and Qian Taoxun (钱韬逊), designed a twelve symbol emblem.

This emblem, seen on the coin at the left, was designed by Lu Xun to be the national emblem for the newly established Republic of China.

Lu Xun incorporated into the design the auspicious elements known as the Twelve Symbols (十二章), which date from the Spring  and Autumn Period (770 BC – 476 BC), that had traditionally been used on the clothing of Chinese emperors.

These ancient symbols include the dragon and pheasant.  However,  the Chinese have traditionally mistaken the pheasant (雉) as being a phoenix (凤) and so the design is usually referred to as the “dragon and phoenix”.

Besides the dragon and pheasant (“phoenix”), the Twelve Symbols include the axe head (斧 located between the dragon and pheasant),  rice (粉米 small circles on the axe), the sun (日 above the axe), the moon (月 the dragon’s horn), fire (火 on dragon’s body), the fu (黻 under the axe), stars (星辰 the three dots above the pheasant’s crest), the mountain (山 bottom of axe), the grail (宗彝 in claws of dragon and pheasant), and seaweed (藻 in pheasant’s beak).

At the top of the coin is written “Made in the 12th Year of the Republic of China” (中華民國十二年造) which would be the year 1923.

The other side of the coin has the denomination “One Yuan” (“One Dollar” 壹圓) written within a wreath of grain (嘉禾).  There are two versions of the coin depending on if the two Chinese characters are written “large” (大字) or “small” (小字).

This “dragon and phoenix silver dollar” was produced as a pattern or trial piece at the mint in Tianjin.  Only a small number were produced and the coins were not put into circulation because the design was considered by some to retain too much symbolism from China’s imperial past.

The lead mold used by the Tianjin Mint to produce these pattern coins can be seen at the Lu Xun Museum in Beijing (北京鲁迅博物馆).

A Chinese newspaper reported today that several tons of iron coins dating from the Song Dynasty were recently discovered in a field near the city of Cangzhou (沧州), Hebei Province in northeast China.  Although the coins protruding through the soil have rusted together, they can still be seen just the way they were arranged in stacks almost a 1,000 years ago.

An outcropping of the pile of neatly stacked iron coins can be seen in the photo at the left.

This was not the first time a large quantity of coins had been discovered in the area.  In July 1997, at a location just 500 meters from the newly discovered pile of coins, more than 48 tons of Song Dynasty iron coins were unearthed.

The actual quantity of coins discovered in the new “pile” is not known at this time.  Based on preliminary calculations, the coins fill an area approximately 25 meters by 16 meters.  The top of the pile is about 0.4-0.5 meters below the surface.  Since it is not known how deep the pile is, the experts can only estimate that there are several tons of coins.

The photo at the left displays one of the iron coins from the pile of coins discovered in 1997.

This round cash coin with a square hole in the center has the inscription zheng he tong bao (正和通寶) which was used on coins cast during the reign (1101-1125 AD) of Emperor Hui Zong of the Northern Song Dynasty.

Mr. Yang Fengling (杨凤岭), the Director of the Cang Prefecture Cultural Relics Institute, said it is not yet known if there is any connection between the newly discovered pile of coins and the coins discovered nearby in 1997.

As to why such a large quantity of Song Dynasty coins might exist, Mr. Yang could only conjecture at this time.

Mr. Yang said that during the Song Dynasty, Cangzhou was one of the places where prisoners were sent.  During ancient times, prison labor was sometimes used to produce coins.  It is possible that this had been the site of a coin foundry or mint.

Mr. Yang also pointed out that the coins seem to have been arranged in a very orderly manner and that the site may have been a large-scale treasury where money was stored.

Mr. Yang mentioned one other interesting possibility.  It is said that after Emperor Taizu (960-976) established the Song Dynasty, he wanted to redeem parts of present day Hebei Province, known then as the “Sixteen States of You Yun” (幽云十六州), which were occupied by the Khitan (契丹) of the Liao Dynasty (辽朝).  Cangzhou happened to be situated right at the border of the Song and Liao territories and the cache of coins may have been intended for this purpose.

Mr. Yang further stated that this new discovery of iron coins might rewrite history.  According to historical sources, iron coins during the Song Dynasty were made and circulated in the southern part of the country.  The discovery of such a large quantity of iron coins in the north means that iron coins must have circulated here as well.  They may also have been produced here.

Mr. Yang hopes that the mysteries surrounding this new discovery may be better explained once excavation of the site begins next month.

According to an article published in today’s Liaoning Daily (辽宁日报), the local police have arrested a gang of thieves who unearthed more than 2,200 rare coins dating from the Later Jin (后金) Dynasty (1616-1636 AD).

According to the report, the Bureau of Public Security of Liaoyang City (辽阳市) has arrested three men suspected of the theft and is presently looking for additional members of the gang.

Mr. Wu, the 32-year-old leader of the gang, was previously employed as a taxi driver.  Last spring, he received word that some ancient Chinese coins had been discovered at a construction site in Liaoyang City.  He went to the site everyday with his shovel but in a year’s time was only able to dig up a little more than 300 coins.

In order to find coins more quickly, Mr. Wu in May of this year bought a metal detector and rented a large excavator.  He also recruited a few accomplices to form a “treasure digging team” which ultimately unearthed more than 2,200 coins weighing 17 kg (37.4 lbs).

Mr. Wu sold the coins for $101,700 (650,000 元).

Not long after, however, the buyer of the coins was arrested.  He confessed and implicated Mr. Wu who was then arrested.

According to the cultural relics experts involved in the case, all the coins unearthed by the thieves have inscriptions written in the Manchu script (满文).  The coins are from the Later Jin Dynasty (后金) which existed during the years 1616-1636 just prior to the Manchus conquering all of China and establishing the Qing Dynasty (清朝 1644-1911).

Unfortunately, no images of the coins were published in the newspaper article.

However, the coins are said to be special in that they were not used for general circulation.  The experts believe that these coins may have been used by Nurhachi (努尔哈赤), the leader of the Manchus (满族), to reward his generals for meritorious achievements.

For this reason, the coins are considered to be very rare and the experts estimate that the market value for these Later Jin Dynasty coins (后金币) is at least $470,000 (3,000,000 元).