Ancient city in text books-1

Series one: Gold coin from Chu State---the first original gold coin in China

Located on the south bank of Huai River and at the southern foot of Bagong Mountain,  the millennium-old Shou county  is home to the splendid cultural heritage of the Chinese nation. As one of the first three cities to be selected as a National Historical and Cultural City, Shou county has been the capital four times and the prefecture 10 times in its history. Its deep historical background including ancient city wall and Chu State culture offers visitors a visual and spiritual feast.

Textbooks currently in use  related to Shou County.

Have you imagined that when textbook chooses Shouzhou Ancient City as its articles which telling readers Shouzhou’s long history and beautiful legend, what kind of dialogue across time and space  it will be? Let’s witness together.

Opening the eleventh page of History book, a textbook for senior high schools in Anhui Province, which was printed for the fifth time in July 2022, another name called Chinese and foreign History Outline (I) , the illustration of this 2019 People's education edition textbook shows eight main currencies circulated between the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, among these, Chu State currencies accounts for two of them with the most prominent one  Chu gold coin.

Situated at Shouxian county, Anhui Chu Culture Museum has a collection of more than 160 first-class and 2,000 second-and third-class cultural relics. In the museum, a transparent display case occupies an entire wall, and pieces of dazzling Chu gold coins form a pyramid, attracting visitors to watch.

Visitors look at Chu gold coins at Anhui Chu Culture Museum.

“At that time, people from other states often used copper cash to trade, while people of Chu chose gold coins, which shows how rich Chu State was,” Chang Yuanxia, deputy director of Anhui Chu Culture Museum, told reporters. As the earliest original gold coin in Chinese history, the gold coins in Chu include  Ying Yuan, Lu Jin, Chen Yuan, and Zhuanyuan Jin which has been listed in  history of Chinese currency.Ying is the name of the capital city of Chu, and Yuan is the unit of monetary weight. Since the 1950s, a multitude of gold sheets at the Shouchun ruins and its surrounding areas have been found in succession,  which lists the largest number in China. Up to now, there have been 195 various pieces of gold coin collections, weighting nearly 20 kilograms in Anhui Chu Culture Museum.

Glittering Chu gold coins.

The ancient gold coins astonish visitors with the help of museum narrator’s introduction. The gold content of Lujin and Chenyuan samples reaches 85.89% and 88.62%  respectively, while the content of Yingyuan samples comes to between 92.59% and 96.19% . Among them, the gold content of Ying Yuan gold sheets is higher than others, named after the coins with the  highest gold content among all  the museums.