List of coin hoards in China

The history of Chinese currency dates back as early as the Spring and Autumn period (770–476 BCE), and the earliest coinages took the form of imitations of the cowrie shells that were used in ceremonial exchanges.

[8][9] As Chinese archaeologists frequently unearth ancient Chinese cash coins and other forms of historical currency at tomb sites, these unearthed bronze coinages are often severely corroded because they have been buried for hundreds or thousands of years, this sometimes means that the inscriptions on them can't be read.

[10] While archaeologists working at a site tend to do everything very slowly and do it as methodically as possible to avoid doing any damage to the buried cultural relics, this approach isn't taken with cash coins because they are often vital to date the tombs or ruins.

[10] To clean bronze cash coins Chinese archaeologists will simply put them in a mild acid like vinegar to soak for a period of 2 or 3 days, after this process is done the surface dirt and some of the corrosion will be removed.

[10] The cash coins are then removed by the person doing the cleaning, and they will them scrape out any leftover corrosion in the Chinese characters by using a (common) toothpick.