Melik Ohanian
Shell, 2014
Concrete sculpture
H 22 x 39 3/8 x 19 3/4 in
Edition of 15, n°12/15
© JC Lett
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The cowrie shell was the first object to be used as money. Before gold and silver, it was the first medium of trade in millennia-old China, some fifteen centuries before...
The cowrie shell was the first object to be used as money. Before gold and silver, it was the first medium of trade in millennia-old China, some fifteen centuries before our era. On board merchant ships, it crossed the oceans and became the currency of ancient African civilizations. Cowrie shells are also used in divinatory rituals in Africa (geomancy). They are used to predict the future by throwing 4 or 7 shells.