LONDON, UK.- The British Museum presents The Wealth of Africa, 4,000 years of money and trade, through 26 June 2005. This exhibition examines the continent of Africa through its currency, from raffia cloth to cowrie shells from copper ingots to coins. Beginning with the use of weighed metal in ancient Egypt, and Africa’s earliest coins in Cyrenaica (modern-day Libya) in the sixth century BC, the exhibition reveals Africa’s power and influence before the arrival of European colonisers and slave traders. Links between money and identity are explored through changes to the coinage during the spread of Christianity and Islam, and the designing of currencies in the twentieth century for newly-independent African countries.