Exhibits
Starfish and Cowrie Shells
Starfish, Cowrie Shells and Murex Shells. Cowries were once used as a form of money. In times past, a slave could be worth anything from twenty to fifty thousand cowrie shells. The common method of handling the cowries was by threading them on a string, forty cowries to one string and using them as currency for bartering. Early traders made fortunes by carrying cowries from the Indian and Pacific Oceans to West Africa where they were exchanged for ivory, palm oil, semiprecious stones and slaves.