COWRIE CURRENCY

The Cowrie Shell is a porcelain-like, polished, colourful shell with beautiful patterns, that come from sea snails, or marine Gastropod Mollusks.
On our daily walks to the beach, we are always on the lookout for who can find the first, and the most beautiful Cowrie Shell, like a treasure hunt. For some reason we seem to have a lot of large shells wash up on our beaches during the winter months.They range from 5mm in length to 19cm for the Atlantic Deer Cowrie.

The Cowrie Shell has many uses, in many parts of the world they have been used as decorative jewelry, money, and for religious purposes.
Many historians believe the Cowrie Shell was one of the first systems of money used. Their value was decided by the law of supply and demand, and also by the fact that polishing and working on the shells was a time consuming and demanding process, so, the more work that was put into them, the more value they had.
For a long period of time, through history, shells were used as currency in nearly every continent. The Money Cowrie, or Cypraea Moneta, is native to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, with a massive population surrounding the waters near the Maldive Islands.

Its a shame we can't still use shell currency today, we have such a large collection of cowries, that if we could, I would probably be on a holiday, instead of writing this post. So, before there was cash currency, before there was cryptocurrency, there was Shell Currency. Sounds so much simpler, doesn't it.

Photos and content by white.tiger