British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences

After Alexander: Central Asia Before Islam

Money in eastern Central Asia before AD800

Helen Wang (The British Museum)

By examining the archaeological and documentary evidence found in Xinjiang and Gansu, I have been working towards establishing a new framework for money in Eastern Central Asia before AD 800. The coins found in this region fall into three main groups: those of the Chinese tradition (cast in bronze, with a square hole in the middle, and a Chinese inscription), those of the Western tradition (struck in gold, silver or bronze, with an inscription and pictorial design) and those created locally in the region (modelled on the Chinese and/or Western tradition). But coins were not the only form of money in Eastern Central Asia. A vast amount of contemporary documentary evidence has also survived. These include Chinese, Kharoshthi, Tocharian B, Kotanese and Tibetan documents, in the form of money transfers, account books, contracts of sale, loan, labour and rent, documents which functioned in actual everyday life, and also tomb inventories, which can be seen as wishful thinking for the next life. The documents show very clearly that coins, textiles, grain and other goods all served as money. Furthermore, the quantity of these documents provide enough examples for us to determine patterns in how these different forms of money were used.