ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Ancient Chinese coinage

Hey there kiddo! Let's talk about ancient Chinese coinage.

Coins are small and round pieces of metal that people use to buy things. Just like how you use your allowance to buy candy or toys, people in the past needed coins to buy things too.

The ancient Chinese used coins that were made out of different types of metal like bronze, silver and gold. These coins had different shapes and sizes depending on what dynasty they were from.

The earliest Chinese coins were called "Banliang" and looked like tiny knives with a hole in the middle. Can you picture it in your mind? These were made more than 2000 years ago during the Zhou dynasty.

Some ancient Chinese coins had symbols or pictures on them. For example, during the Tang dynasty, coins had a square hole in the middle with a character on one side and an image of a building on the other side.

Coins were not just used for buying and selling things. They also had a symbolic value as well. For example, giving someone a coin as a gift represented good luck and wealth.

So there you have it - a brief introduction to ancient Chinese coinage! So next time you see a coin, you can think about how people in the past used them to buy and sell things, and how they had a special meaning beyond just their monetary value.