In the second millennium B.C.E., cyphers began to be used as money in China.
Cypreas are snails whose shells are particularly beautiful and shiny, like porcelain.
Due to the insufficient supply of these cyphers, reproductions of cyphers in bone, stone or bronze began to be made.
These deer bone cyphers were made during the Zhou dynasty.
This dynasty ruled between about 1050 B.C. and 256 B.C. It is the third Chinese dynasty in traditional history, and the second, after the Shang dynasty, of which there is evidence from written sources of its time. Ornamental arts and techniques flourished, which manifested, as in many Mesoamerican and European cultures, the desire of men to communicate with the immortals. The Zhou dynasty was the last of the dynasties of kings prior to the imperial dynasties. In this era lived the great Chinese thinkers of antiquity, such as Confucius, and classical Chinese literature began. Until recently, Cyprus coins have been circulating money in different parts of the Pacific (Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Hawaii) and West Africa.
