The ancient Chinese created a new form of money to use in their society: representative money. Which of these objects is the best example of representative money?

The use of shell money is attested to in the Chinese writing system. The traditional characters for 'goods' (貨), 'buy/sell' (買/賣), and 'monger' (販), in addition to various other words relating to 'exchange', all contain the radical ' 貝 ', which is the pictograph for shell (simplified in China to 贝.) However, the extent of the circulation of shell money is unknown, and barter trade may have been common. However, copies of cowry shells made out of bone, wood, stone, lead and copper were common enough to presume that they were used in trade.