A cowrie shell from different viewing angles. (Source: Wikipedia)
The Maldive Islands, located in the Indian Ocean, are known for their sandy beaches, lush coconut palm forests, and coral atolls. On these islands is located the Republic of Maldives, a former Asian kingdom. The Republic of Maldives is one of the most unusual countries in the world. It is located almost in the very middle of the Indian Ocean, about 700 kilometers west of Sri Lanka. The Maldives have over 2,000 islands, of which only 200 are inhabited. Almost all residents are of the Muslim faith, and the capital city of Male has a population of about 212,000 residents, which is almost half of the total population.
From a numismatic perspective, these islands became famous for cowrie shells, which were a type of primitive money and were used as a medium of exchange.
The Maldives are not a new state, but have practically always been an independent country. They were under foreign rule for only a short period of just 17 years (1558–1575). Specifically, the Portuguese managed to conquer the Maldivian kingdom by assassinating Sultan Ali VI.
The Maldives were never a European colony, except when they were a British protectorate from 1887 to 1965. British protection was voluntary, and through an agreement between the Governor of Ceylon, Sir H. A. Gordon, and the then Sultan of the Maldives, Mohamed Mueenuddin II, the British assumed the obligation to protect the Maldives. In exchange, the British obtained the right to use the southernmost island of the Maldives, Gan, for their military base. When the British left Gan on July 26, 1965, the Prime Minister of the Maldives, Ibrahim Nasir, signed the Agreement on the Complete Independence of the country on behalf of the nation.
Staying in the Maldives today gives an unusual impression. Although by some economic logic the country would be expected to be poor, it seems rich. The population of the Maldives does not engage in agriculture nor does it have a developed industry. Fishing has always been crucial to the country's economy, along with another item: cowrie shells. Today, the country receives significant foreign exchange earnings from tourism, making the Maldives one of the most fashionable winter resorts for European tourists. In the past, the main source of income in the Maldives was the sale of cowrie shells, which were used as money.
In the past, the Maldives were the main supplier to Asia and Africa of a special type of shells known as cowrie shells.
These shells were selected as the most significant type of primitive money due to their characteristic properties. They belong to the Cypraea family and represent the exoskeleton of two species of mollusks, moneta and annulus. In Latin, they are known as CYPREA MONITA.
Cowrie shells were chosen to serve as money for the following reasons: first, their porcelain-like appearance is very attractive; second, they are relatively small and quite uniform in size; third, they are relatively rare and their deposits are located at a considerable distance from the countries where they were used as a medium of exchange, such as China and Africa; fourth, it is impossible to counterfeit them; and fifth, they are sturdy and very durable.
Ancient China was the oldest known market for cowrie shells, and their circulation began before 2350 BC.
A 20 Ghanaian Cedi coin depicting a cowrie shell. (Source: Wikipedia)
Simon de la Loubère states in his book „A New Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Siam“ that cowrie shells have been used as a store of value and a medium of exchange for more than three thousand years. In ancient times, these shells were transported from their habitats in warm, shallow seas, such as the Maldive Islands, to China, Egypt, Mesopotamia (Nineveh), and Asia Minor (Troy). Their value stems from their uniform size, rarity, and the impossibility of counterfeiting them.
The author even cites interesting information about the use of cowrie shells in Hungary, but expresses doubt about that claim.
Cowrie shells were widely distributed in China, especially during the Shang dynasty (1776–1122 BC), which can be inferred from the fact that the Chinese character for cowrie shell, “Pei,” appears in the roots of 214 different expressions in the Chinese language. This symbol almost always denotes some form of value, whether material or moral.
Cowrie shells had the longest-lasting use in Sudan, where they served as a means of payment for taxes, fines, and other financial obligations in the state administration until as late as 1907.
In the past, cowrie shells were used as a basic medium of exchange in some parts of the world, usually strung together in the form of necklaces. However, in those countries, they are not equated with money, but with commodities that served as money. This is similar to how pieces of metal served as money in various ancient civilizations, salt in ancient Rome, or cloth in the Inca civilization.
Numismatist Dobrila Tesla-Zarić described one of the ways of payment using cowrie shells: „When buying fish, for example, they would place the cowrie shells next to each other, and however long the fish was, that was its value.“.
Cowrie shells were a popular form of commodity money, and their value was usually expressed in relation to the value of gold or other “real” money. However, the value of cowrie shells varied depending on the distance from the place where they were used as currency and the quantity imported during specific time periods. In some countries, such as the Maldives in 1344, the value of a single gold dinar was as much as 400,000 cowrie shells, while in Central Africa in the same year, cowrie shells were 348 times more valuable. For example, a dinar weighing 20 Arabic carats (4.24 grams of gold) was worth only 1,150 cowrie shells. Therefore, the value of cowrie shells as commodity money was relative and depended on the specific conditions of each place and time.
In the 17th century, one dollar was worth 60,000 cowrie shells, while one silver Maldivian larin at the same time was worth 12,000 cowrie shells.
At the end of the 16th century, the first Maldivian metal currency, the larin, appeared. The French shipwreck survivor F. Pyrard de Laval stated in 1602 that the currency of the Maldivian kingdom was made of silver and that there was only one type—pieces of silver called larins, worth approximately 8 sous of French currency. The larin is as long as a finger, but much flatter, and the king mints it on his island, inscribing his name on it in Arabic letters. Instead of small change, cowrie shells were mainly used in the Maldives at that time, with 12,000 pieces representing the value of one larin.
1 Maldivian laari coin. (Source: Coins, Banknotes & Militaria Store)
Today, small change in the Maldives is called Larin or LARI (laari). One rufiyaa represents the basic monetary unit of the Maldives, and it consists of one hundred laaris.
This article was created based on the work of Ranko Mandić published in the magazine Obol no. 37, April 1985.
