TWO MILLION copper coins weighing a whopping 10 tonnes found inside 2,000-year-old tomb

•     Tomb discovered in Nanchang, capital of East China's Jiangxi Province
•     It also includes 10,000 gold, bronze and iron items, chimes, bamboo slips
•     Experts hope it will shed light on the life of nobility from ancient times
•     The value of the coins is said to be around £104,000 ($157,340) 

Archaeologists have unearthed more than two million copper coins from an ancient complex of tombs in the Xinjian District of China. The 2,000-year-old money, which bears Chinese symbols, characters, and a square hole in the centre, was found at a dig site in the city of Nanchang.
The value of the coins is said to be around £104,000 ($157,340) and experts believe the main tomb is that of Liu He - the grandson of Emperor Wu, the greatest ruler of Han Dynasty.

THE DEMISE OF THE WESTERN HAN DYNASTY (202 BC - 220 AD)
The Western Han was regarded as the first unified and powerful empire in Chinese history
While there are many theories behind the fall of the Western Han Dynasty, recent research suggests human interaction with the environment played a role in its demise.
A census taken by China in 2 AD suggests the area struck by the massive 14-17 AD flood was very heavily populated, with an average of 122 people per square kilometre, or approximately 9.5 million people living directly in the flood’s path.
Historical accounts indicate that communities hit by the flood were soon in complete disarray, with reports of people resorting to banditry to obtain food and stay alive.
By AD 20-21, the devastated region had become the centre of a rebellion that would end the Western Han Dynasty’s five-century reign of power. 

14 Pound Gold Nugget Found in Austrailia. [Shocking] 

The find follows a five-year excavation process on the site which houses eight tombs and a chariot burial site.
It covers (430,550 sq ft (40,000 square metres) with walls that stretch for almost 9,690 ft (900 metres) and experts believe Liu's wife is buried in one of the tombs, RT reported.
Xin Lixiang of the China National Museum said the next step is to look within the tomb for items that will give a clearer idea of the occupant.
'There may be a royal seal and jade clothes that will suggest the status and identity of the tombs occupant,' he said.
Chinese people started using coins as currency around 1,200 BC, where instead of trading small farming implements and knives, they would melt them down into small round objects and then turn them back into knives and farm implements when needed.
It meant early coins were known as 'knife money' or 'tool money', and as people began to rely on them more for commerce they were replaced by copper coins which were of a very low value and often had holes in the middle.
The hole meant the coins could be strung together to create larger denominations, with typically around 1,000 coins on a single string being worth one tael of pure silver.

At face value they would be valued at around £104,060 ($157,340), but because of their age and history are believed to be worth far more.

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A single coin can in fact sell for thousands of pounds, although at the time copper coins had a very low value.
The Western Han was regarded as the first unified and powerful empire in Chinese history.
While there are many theories behind the fall of the Western Han Dynasty, recent research suggests human interaction with the environment played a central role in its demise.

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