On Weds 29 and Thurs 20 March, the Butterfly House, Animal Walk, Blue Badge Parking, Bandstand Terrace and Horniman Drive gates and path will be closed for resurfacing works. Please follow signs on site.
We strongly advise visitors to book tickets in advance to avoid queuing, due to reduced till points at the Ticket Desk.
Round brass coin-shaped charm with a square hole at the centre. On the obverse are depicted a snake, tortoise, sword and the Northern Dipper or seven stars. On the reverse are four Chinese characters in seal script reading 'wu xing da bu' which means the large coin of the five elements. This item was made to imitate coins issued in 574 AD by the Emperor Wu in the Northern Zhou dynasty, 557-581 AD.
These objects are only a part of our collections, of which there are more than 350,000 objects. This information comes from our collections database. Some of this is incomplete and there may be errors. This part of the website is also still under construction, so there may be some fields repeated or incorrectly formatted information.
The database sometimes uses language taken from historical documents to help research, which may now appear outdated and even offensive. The database also includes information on objects that are considered secret or sacred by some communities.
If you have any further information about objects in our collections or can suggest corrections to our information, please contact us: enquiry@horniman.ac.uk
