"Difficult to walk" Li Bai: Golden bottle sake bucket ten thousand, jade plate zhen shame straight ten thousand dollars.
In many film and television drama clips, we will see such a plot, no matter what kind of status of people, the first thing to get the silver is to first bite a few bites on the teeth
。 Whenever silver is mentioned, images of people measuring hardness with their teeth will come to mind. However, this is also a misleading phenomenon in film and television dramas.
In fact, the silver we see in film and television dramas is not considered to be the real silver in ancient times
There is an essential difference between them. As the most important copper coins, gold and silver in the circulation of ancient money, what do they really look like? The true appearance of ancient silver, full of tooth marks, was thrown on the ground and could not be recognized.
The status of silver in ancient times
Before understanding the true appearance of silver in ancient times, we can first understand the status of silver.
Silver as a very important currency in ancient times,
It is closely related to people's lives and has an inseparable relationship.
Silver, as a moderate amount of money, is even more used than gold
。 In terms of silver material, it has always belonged to the precious metals that exist in nature, whether in terms of ductility or flexibility, it is slightly better than other natural metals. However, this appreciated natural metal is not the first to be discovered. Because it has the fewest elemental forms, it was discovered much later than gold. Don't look at the value of gold over silver, but because it is more difficult to mine silver, the value of silver in the circulation of money can be said to be much higher than that of gold.
Silver was called silver in ancient times, perhaps it is the deceptiveness of this name that has led many people, many film and television directors and screenwriters, to mistake "silver" for silver with white flowers.
But the real silver of ancient times is actually not like this at all, it is not white flowers, but it is pitch black
。 At first glance, there is no sign of anyone feeling valuable. And why is silver like this? Pursue the oldest appearance of money. In the primitive social period, people's economic exchanges often relied on shells to complete.
By the time of Qin Shi Huang's reign, the circulation of money began to be chaotic, and knife coins, ring money, and so on appeared
。 Because of the variety of forms of money, it is very inconvenient to circulate
It was not until the late Qin Shi Huang unified the currency that the square hole copper coin completely appeared on the historical stage.
However, the number of square hole copper coins is huge, and it is always inconvenient to carry them on the body
Imagine the idiom summed up by the ancients - "waist is wrapped up", we can imagine that in that period, the rich people wrapped a circle of silver around their waists. It is precisely because the large number of copper coins makes people a little confused, so human beings began to invent new currencies.
Banknotes and treasures appear
For convenience, Jiaozi stepped onto the stage of history and began to circulate in the market.
People no longer have to go out with a heavy pile of coins, but only need to carry light paper money.
However, human beings are always very eventful, and after using convenient paper money, they feel that money has less value, so in the Yuan Dynasty, silver has entered the historical stage
However, it was not named at that time, and it was not officially called "Yuanbao" until the Ming Dynasty. The period when it was most developed was during the Qing Dynasty.
However, it only circulated among the rich and noble
Ordinary people rarely see silver, and some people have never even seen silver in their entire lives.
Silver was mined very little in the earliest days, so it was expensive to be rare and valuable, and the value was very high.
But with the progress and development of science and technology, the amount of silver mined is increasing, and gradually it has become a very common thing
。 As a result, the value of silver began to decrease gradually. To this day, the value of silver jewelry is also much lower than the value of gold jewelry. It is precisely because the value of gold is high and the value of silver is gradually decreasing, people began to abandon the collection of silver jewelry and instead collect gold jewelry.
What silver really looks like
However, even if it is a fairly high-status silver, its true appearance is not what we think. Although its voice is very high, it is usually not real, because its black and gray appearance always makes people feel very dim. However, there is a reason why it is blackened all over.
Silver is a very lively metal, so when it is extracted, it is mixed with many magazines
, even if placed in air, it is very easy to be oxidized.
So this is why, in the film and television drama, we can see that some shop assistants or people who manage prisons will first put it in their mouths and bite it after receiving the silver to determine whether it is soft or not.
If it is soft, it means that it is real silver, and if it is not soft, it is false
epilogue
Silver in ancient times can be described as very rare, although people will doubt its true value in today's view, because it is black and full of ancient teeth marks, but it is also these historical marks that add a lot of color to silver and give it a strong historical connotation.
Reference: "Difficult to walk"