New record set in China for oldest known coin manufacturing plant

A team of researchers from Zhengzhou University, the Center for Analysis and Modern Computing at Zhengzhou University, and Peking University, all located in China, have found evidence of what appears to be the oldest coin minting operation ever discovered. In their article published on the University of Cambridge website antiquity, the group describes their discovery and study of coins and minting molds found at an excavation site in Henan Province, China, and what they learned from them.

Until now, researchers believed that the use of coins as a form of currency first developed in Greece or Turkey. The coins unearthed in what is now modern Turkey, created and used by the inhabitants of the Lydian Empire, have been dated as far back as 630 BC. In this new effort, researchers found coins in China at the same location as a minting facility, which left ashes that could be used for carbon dating, a very precise way to date the operation of hit.

The coins and mussels were found at a site identified as the ancient city of Guanzhuang, which was founded around 800 BC. Testing of the ash left over from the fires used to melt the metal showed it to be around 2,600 years old, which would mean that the facility was used to make coins as recently as 550 BC and as long as as 640 BC, making it the oldest known coin-making facility ever discovered.

Researchers suggest that the facility was first used to make tools, weapons, and other items as early as 770 BC. They also note that historians have still not agreed on the reason for the creation of money in the form of coins; some suggest it made buying and selling easier, while others believe it was a way for governments to collect taxes.

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