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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sima Qian, "Records of the Grand Historian," Vol. 30, The Treatise on the Balanced Standard.

Sima Qian (Wikisource)

Claims Supported by This Source

  1. The origins of tortoise shell, cowrie shell, gold, coin, knife, and spade currencies are too ancient to be recorded.
  2. The Qin established two grades of currency: the upper currency was gold, counted in yi, and the lower currency was bronze coins, inscribed with "Ban Liang" (half liang) and weighing as inscribed. Pearls, jade, tortoise shells, cowries, silver, and tin were not used as currency.

How to read the verification levels. 'Read' means the material was read in its entirety. 'Bibliography and abstract confirmed' means the bibliographic information and abstract were verified. 'Via course material' means the source was referenced through the main text of a book or a country's monetary history. The text hash is the SHA-256 of the main text from the original source page, excluding tags and whitespace, used to detect if the material has been altered.