| # | Polity | Coded Value | Tags | Year(s) | Edit | Desc |
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Dating is approximate; the exact time the Lydians began minting coins is unknown, but the Phoenicians were in close contact with them and the Greeks from the beginning. It is speculated that the first Phoenician coins (see below) were minted from melted-down Greek silver coins.
[1]
[1]: Altmann (2016:138). |
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"By the early 6th century BC, the east Aegean Greek towns bordering Lydia were issuing their own mainly silver coins, as was maritime Aegina. City-states in southern Italy were soon active too, ad in the late 6th century some on Cyrpus and coastal, metal-rich Populonia in Etruria followed suit, the latter with large units rather than small change."
[1]
[1]: (Broodbank 2015, 556) Broodbank, Cyprian. 2015. The Making of the Middle Sea. Thames & Hudson. London. |
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Dating is approximate; the exact time the Lydians began minting coins is unknown, but the Phoenicians were in close contact with them and the Greeks from the beginning. It is speculated that the first Phoenician coins (see below) were minted from melted-down Greek silver coins.
[1]
[1]: Altmann (2016:138). |
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The following quote suggests that French coins were present in the Kingdom of Sine. “French commercial houses became so important to the Gambian trade that as early as 1843 the, French five-franc piece, called the ‘dollar’ or the ‘gourde’ was recognized as legal tender in the Gambia.”
[1]
The following quote suggests that this was likely true beginning in the Early Modern period: “All three capitals: Kahone, Diakhao, and Lambaye, were established in the mid-sixteenth century when the fertile coastal provinces of the Empire of Jolof- an inland empire established in the thirteenth century-gained independence … They prospered as independent kingdoms during the mercantilist era and, together, constituted the ‘Peanut Basin’ that developed during the colonial era. They maintained trade relations with the European and Eura-african merchants who frequented their port cities, and diplomatic relations with the Dutch, French and English/British chartered companies that claimed to monopolize trade along their coasts.”
[2]
[1]: (Klein 2009, 912) Klein, Martin. 2009. ‘Slaves, Gum, and Peanuts: Adaptation to the End of the Slave Trade in Senegal, 1817-48.’ In The William and Mary Quarterly. Vol. 66:4 Pp. 895-914. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZVA4XV6B/collection [2]: (Bigon and Ross 2020, 42) Bigon, Liora and Ross, Eric. 2020. Grid Planning in the Urban Design Practices of Senegal. London: Springer. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/MM67I638/collection |
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The following quote suggests that French coins were present in the Kingdom of Saloum. “French commercial houses became so important to the Gambian trade that as early as 1843 the, French five-franc piece, called the ‘dollar’ or the ‘gourde’ was recognized as legal tender in the Gambia.”
[1]
The following quote suggests that this was likely true beginning in the Early Modern period: “All three capitals: Kahone, Diakhao, and Lambaye, were established in the mid-sixteenth century when the fertile coastal provinces of the Empire of Jolof- an inland empire established in the thirteenth century-gained independence […] They prospered as independent kingdoms during the mercantilist era and, together, constituted the ‘Peanut Basin’ that developed during the colonial era. They maintained trade relations with the European and Eura-african merchants who frequented their port cities, and diplomatic relations with the Dutch, French and English/British chartered companies that claimed to monopolize trade along their coasts.”
[2]
[1]: (Klein 2009, 912) Klein, Martin. 2009. ‘Slaves, Gum, and Peanuts: Adaptation to the End of the Slave Trade in Senegal, 1817-48.’ In The William and Mary Quarterly. Vol. 66:4 Pp. 895-914. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZVA4XV6B/collection [2]: (Bigon and Ross 2020, 42) Bigon, Liora and Ross, Eric. 2020. Grid Planning in the Urban Design Practices of Senegal. London: Springer. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/MM67I638/collection |
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The following quote suggests that French coins were present in the Kingdom of Saloum. “French commercial houses became so important to the Gambian trade that as early as 1843 the, French five-franc piece, called the ‘dollar’ or the ‘gourde’ was recognized as legal tender in the Gambia.”
[1]
The following quote suggests that this was likely true beginning in the Early Modern period: “All three capitals: Kahone, Diakhao, and Lambaye, were established in the mid-sixteenth century when the fertile coastal provinces of the Empire of Jolof- an inland empire established in the thirteenth century-gained independence […] They prospered as independent kingdoms during the mercantilist era and, together, constituted the ‘Peanut Basin’ that developed during the colonial era. They maintained trade relations with the European and Eura-african merchants who frequented their port cities, and diplomatic relations with the Dutch, French and English/British chartered companies that claimed to monopolize trade along their coasts.”
[2]
[1]: (Klein 2009, 912) Klein, Martin. 2009. ‘Slaves, Gum, and Peanuts: Adaptation to the End of the Slave Trade in Senegal, 1817-48.’ In The William and Mary Quarterly. Vol. 66:4 Pp. 895-914. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZVA4XV6B/collection [2]: (Bigon and Ross 2020, 42) Bigon, Liora and Ross, Eric. 2020. Grid Planning in the Urban Design Practices of Senegal. London: Springer. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/MM67I638/collection |
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The following quote suggests that French coins were present in the Kingdom of Sine. “French commercial houses became so important to the Gambian trade that as early as 1843 the, French five-franc piece, called the ‘dollar’ or the ‘gourde’ was recognized as legal tender in the Gambia.”
[1]
The following quote suggests that this was likely true beginning in the Early Modern period: “All three capitals: Kahone, Diakhao, and Lambaye, were established in the mid-sixteenth century when the fertile coastal provinces of the Empire of Jolof- an inland empire established in the thirteenth century-gained independence … They prospered as independent kingdoms during the mercantilist era and, together, constituted the ‘Peanut Basin’ that developed during the colonial era. They maintained trade relations with the European and Eura-african merchants who frequented their port cities, and diplomatic relations with the Dutch, French and English/British chartered companies that claimed to monopolize trade along their coasts.”
[2]
[1]: (Klein 2009, 912) Klein, Martin. 2009. ‘Slaves, Gum, and Peanuts: Adaptation to the End of the Slave Trade in Senegal, 1817-48.’ In The William and Mary Quarterly. Vol. 66:4 Pp. 895-914. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZVA4XV6B/collection [2]: (Bigon and Ross 2020, 42) Bigon, Liora and Ross, Eric. 2020. Grid Planning in the Urban Design Practices of Senegal. London: Springer. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/MM67I638/collection |
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During the reservation period, land and crops sales helped to generate monetary income: ’From 1790 until 1839, tribal and village government generally similar to that characteristic of the aboriginal era functioned. Local administration of justice and the allocation of lands among tribal members was in the hands of each of the tribal communities scattered along the banks of the Grand River. The Lower Cayuga had a treasury that dispensed with the proceeds of land sales. The Lower Mohawk too had a tribal fund which they jealously guarded (Canada, Six Nation Council Minutes, 1834-1839, P.A.C.R.G., 10). However, the Hereditary Council incroasingly assumed the autherity in what were previously tribal estates. In 1835 the council pressure from the Upper Mohawks led the Lower tribes to grant the Mohawks a share of the proceeds from the sale of Plaster beds.’
[1]
The prior use of foreign currency in external trade cannot be ruled out.
[1]: Foley, Denis 1994. “Ethnohistoric And Ethnographic Analysis Of The Iroquois From The Aboriginal Era To The Present Suburban Era”, 176 |
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During the reservation period, land and crops sales helped to generate monetary income: ’From 1790 until 1839, tribal and village government generally similar to that characteristic of the aboriginal era functioned. Local administration of justice and the allocation of lands among tribal members was in the hands of each of the tribal communities scattered along the banks of the Grand River. The Lower Cayuga had a treasury that dispensed with the proceeds of land sales. The Lower Mohawk too had a tribal fund which they jealously guarded (Canada, Six Nation Council Minutes, 1834-1839, P.A.C.R.G., 10). However, the Hereditary Council incroasingly assumed the autherity in what were previously tribal estates. In 1835 the council pressure from the Upper Mohawks led the Lower tribes to grant the Mohawks a share of the proceeds from the sale of Plaster beds.’
[1]
The prior use of foreign currency in external trade cannot be ruled out.
[1]: Foley, Denis 1994. “Ethnohistoric And Ethnographic Analysis Of The Iroquois From The Aboriginal Era To The Present Suburban Era”, 176 |
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Territories across the empire had their own currency, e.g. Rupees in India. "Before the early nineteenth century the Royal Mint’s role was largely domestic. Britain’s North American colonies had gained the right to issue their own coinage ... while in South Asia the East India Company had been allowed since the late seventeeth century to ’purchase’ permission from local Indian rulers to reproduce coins that followed India as opposed to English conventions."
[1]
"domestic British coin became increasingly an ’imperial currency’, circulating throughout much of the Empire. ... in the course of the nineteeth century, the Mint began producing a variety of dedicated colonial as well as other foreign coinages, designated ’private’ by the Mint, and paid for by the overseas customers. From 1883 the Treasury encouraged all colonies to obtain their local currencies from the Mint."
[2]
[1]: (Stockwell 2018, 45-46) Sarah Stockwell. 2018. The British End of the British Empire. Cambridge University PRess. Cambridge. [2]: (Stockwell 2018, 46) Sarah Stockwell. 2018. The British End of the British Empire. Cambridge University PRess. Cambridge. |
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Monetary system did not existed in the Akkadian Empire Period.
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Monetary system did not exist in the Early Dynastic Period.
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Monetary system did not exist in the Ubaid.
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Monetary system did not exist in the Ur III polity.
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Monetary system did not exist in the Uruk polity.
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Through trade and through tribute, for example from the Seljuks who paid partly in cash.
[1]
[1]: Melville, Charles. “Anatolia under the Mongols.” In The Cambridge History of Turkey, edited by Kate Fleet, Suraiya Faroqhi, and Reşat Kasaba, 51-101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.p.54, p.60 |
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Monetary system did not exist in the Shimashki’s polity
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“Additionally, both Patrick and Gildas seem to have known the purpose and value of money and, although there was no new coining and very little importation of continental issues post 410, existing coins may have continued to circulate for some time, or have been used to store wealth or pay tribute.”
[1]
Merovingian (Frankish dynasty) gold coins were entering the south-east of England predominantly from the late sixth-century.
[2]
[1]: (Higham 2004: 3) Higham, Nick. ‘From Sub-Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England: Debating the Insular Dark Ages’, History Compass 2, no. 1 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2004.00085.x. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XZT7A79K [2]: (Hamerow 2005: 285) Hamerow, Helena. 2005. “The Earliest Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms.” Chapter. In The New Cambridge Medieval History, edited by Paul Fouracre, 1:263–88. The New Cambridge Medieval History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521362917.012. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5JNINHPQ |
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No mention of foreign coins in the sources consulted thus far.
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No mention of foreign coins in the sources consulted thus far.
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Foreign coins have not been mentioned in the sources consulted.
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Did Roman coinage reach China? Would it have been used as money?
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Coins evolved at a later time.
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Chinese currency was used where markets and cash were accessible: ’Trade. - The Miao people do not know how to trade. Formerly, the Chinese brought salt and cloth into the Miao villages to exchange for their local products, but there were many dishonest traders, who cheated the Miao, giving rise to much confusion at times. Later the Chinese were officially prohibited from entering Miao villages to trade, but certain places were designated for sitting up markets, to be used once every five days, six times a month. The best-known markets among the Miao are the Te-sheng-ying, Kan-tzu-p’ing, Ya-pao-chai, Ya-la-ying, and Hsin-chai (Illus. 40) of Feng-huang; the Ta-hsin-chai of Kan-ch’eng; and the Wei-ch’eng, Lung-t’an, and Ma-li-ch’ang of Yung-sui. The important articles of trade are salt, cloth, animals, /Illus. 39, p. 73/ /Illus. 40 appears here/ and grains. Formerly, in trade between the Chinese and the Miao four small bowls were equal to one sheng. For cloth one measure between two hands was considered four ch’ih. The price of cattle and horses are set by the number of fists, regardless of age. The method of measurement by fist is like this. They take a bamboo splint and wind it around the fore ribs of the cow to set its girth, and then they measure the bamboo splint with their fists. A water buffalo which measures 16 fists is big, and a common yellow cow which measures 13 fists is large. The operation is called “fisting a cow.” In the case of horses age does come into consideration. They measure a horse from the ground to the saddle place by comparing it with a wooden rod. A 13-fist high one is big. A horse with few teeth but of many fists fetches a higher price, and the reverse fetches a lower price. This operation is called “comparing horses.” In recent times, in the sale of rice, cloth, and other articles, they have adopted the Chinese standards of weight and measurement, but “fisting cows” and “comparing horses” are sometimes still done.’
[1]
’There are localities where the Ch’uan Miao barter a great deal because of the shortage of money, the differences being paid in cash. This is more common in northern Yunnan than in Szechwan where market-places and towns are more accessible. The Ch’uan Miao sell cattle, goats, sheep, horses, pigs, chickens, corn, rice, eggs and vegetables and purchase salt. cloth, silver ornaments, pottery and implements and tools made of iron.’
[2]
Cash gifts were also part of marriage negotiations: ’A considerable time is allowed to elapse between engagement and marriage. Before the wedding ceremony the boy’s parents select another lucky day to make a formal call upon the girl’s family in company with five to eight relatives to deliver cash and other gifts. This is called “sung p’ing-chin” /sending betrothal money/ or "tsou k’ê /going as guests/. The cash present varies from $30 or $50 up to $400 or $500, depending upon the financial ability of the boy’s family. The dowry of the girl is also proportional to the amount of cash. Other gifts include glutinous rice, (rich families giving as many as one or two piculs /a picul is 100 catties or 133.3 1 bs/), puffed rice /candies/, cakes, brown sugar, a silver necklace, and one or two fat pigs. The gifts are placed on table scaffoldings, each carried by two men. The presents of rich families can be quite lavish and sometimes amount to as many as a dozen tables. [...] The head of the groom’s family then picks up the cash and the silver necklace both wrapped in a piece of red paper and places them on the rice. Next he burns incense and lights candles to worship the ancestors. After a few minutes the four representatives at the table each pick up a bowl of wine and empties it in one gulp. These then become the witnesses who are required to testify in the event of marital complications or divorce. At that time, if the bride’s family considers the cash gift as not large enough to match the dowry, they may ask their representatives to refrain from drinking the wine to indicate dissatisfaction.’
[3]
[1]: Ling, Shun-sheng, Yifu Ruey, and Lien-en Tsao 1947. “Report On An Investigation Of The Miao Of Western Hunan”, 103 [2]: Graham, David Crockett 1937. “Customs Of The Ch’Uan Miao", 24 [3]: Che-lin, Wu, Chen Kuo-chün, and Lien-en Tsao 1942. “Studies Of Miao-I Societies In Kweichow”, 44 |
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Qing currency.
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Coins were invented at a later time.
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Coins evolved at a later time.
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According to SCCS variable 17 ’Money (Media of Exchange) and Credit’, ‘1’ or ’No media of exchange or money’ was present, not ’Domestically used articles as media of exchange’ or ’Tokens of conventional value as media of exchange’ or ’Foreign coinage or paper coinage’, or ’Indigenous coinage or paper currency’. Rivet reports some monetization of the tsantsa trade for the 19th and 20th centuries: ’The first tsantsas coming to Europe had their hour [72] of renown and attained extraordinary prices. In 1865, one of them was sold for 1500 francs ( ). Ten years ago another was sold at auction for 500 francs at the Hotél Drouot ( ). Actually, these objects are much less rare and have lost a part of their commercial value. At Macas, at Gualaquiza and at Zamora, the whites buy them directly from the Indians for ten sucres, that is 25 francs, and take them to Cuenca, Riobamba and Loja, where they resell them for 30 to 50 sucres, that is 75 to 125 francs. In Europe, the best examples are worth 200 and 300 francs and there is not an important museum that does not possess at least one. In Paris, the Museum of Natural History has five of them, the Anthropological Society one, the Ethnographic Museum of the Trocadero three, the Army Museum one, and also there are a good number in private collections.’
[1]
This seems to suggest little monetization in the colonial period, given the prevalence of gold dust (see above). Moneylenders would “loan coin”
[2]
The district of Quito reached its highest level of economic prosperity in the seventeenth century, but actual coinage was rare. This currency shortage was generalized throughout Spanish America.
[3]
[1]: Rivet, Paul 1908. “Jivaro Indians: Geographic, Historical And Ethnographic Research”, 71p [2]: (97) Lane, K. 2002. Quito 1599: City and Colony in Transition. University of New Mexico Press. [3]: Gauderman, K. 2010. Women’s Lives in Colonial Quito: Gender, Law, and Economy in Spanish America. University of Texas Press. |
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Saite Period was inferred absent but Achaemenids had a single currency monetary system and daric coins may have circulated at least for a while after the Persians had left.
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No reference to coins, and taxes were paid in silver and grain.
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No information found in sources so far.
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At least in the Early Carolingian period the most common foreign coins in use were Byzantine and Arab coins.
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At least in the Early Carolingian period the most common foreign coins in use were Byzantine and Arab coins.
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Sarbah mentions foreign coinage, but it is not quite clear whether this was used extensively by Europeans when trading with Akan partners: ‘Following the early voyages already mentioned, a royal chartered company, formed in 1618, founded the first British settlement in Gold Coast at Kromantin. In 1662 a second company was formed, and during its existence De Ruyter, the famous Dutch admiral, took the British fort at Kromantin, but was repulsed when he attacked the castle of Cape Coast. This Anglo-African company not only exported woolen and other English goods to the value of about £75,000 a year, but it also supplied a large number of slaves to the American plantations, and the slave trade became so lucrative that, although slaves were sold at a very fair price, credit of £100,000 and upwards was often given to the planters until they could conveniently pay. It was therefore to the great advantage of these European traders to foster dissension and disunion among the Africans, to instigate them to constant hostilities, and to encourage raiding expeditions, so as to keep up the supply of war captives and other prisoners for sale. Seeing that the company imported not only a great quantity of ivory, camwood, and much gold dust, but that they also, in the reign of James II., frequently coined at a time from thirty to forty thousand guineas bearing the image of an elephant, the accursed slave trade could not be justified. This company was succeeded by the Royal African Company of England in 1672, which steadily fostered and extended British interest along the coast; but on the abolition of its exclusive privileges, it was finally dissolved in 1752, when a trading corporation was created. The membership of this, however, was open to all British traders on payment of a fee of two pounds. The statutes 23 George II. c. 31 and 25 George II. c. 40, which created the new company of merchants trading to Africa, also authorized Parliament to subsidize it every year; this was done up to the year 1821, when by statute 1 & 2 George IV. c. 28 it was dissolved, and all its possessions became vested in the Crown as a portion of the West African [Page 77] settlements, the seat of government being then at Sierra Leone.’
[1]
We have provisionally assumed European currencies to not be in widespread use in Akan-European trade relations. This is open to re-evaluation.
[1]: Sarbah, John Mensah 1968. “Fanti National Constitution: A Short Treatise On The Constitution And Government Of The Fanti, Asanti, And Other Akan Tribes Of West Africa Together With A Brief Account Of The Discovery Of The Gold Coast By Portuguese Navigators, A Short Narration Of Early English Voyages, And A Study Of The Rise Of British Gold Coast Jurisdiction, Etc., Etc.”, 76p |
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According to SCCS variable 17 ’Money (Media of Exchange) and Credit’ ’Tokens of conventional value as media of exchange’ were used, not ’No media of exchange or money’ or ’Domestically used articles as media of exchange’ or ’Foreign coinage or paper coinage’, or ’Indigenous coinage or paper currency’.
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’Needless to say, there was no money (in Diamond’s words, no "abstract, intrinsically valueless medium for appropriating surplus, storing value, and deferring payment or delaying exchange") in precontact Hawai’i’.
[1]
[1]: (Trask 1983, 99) Haunani-Kay Trask. 1983. ’Cultures in Collision: Hawai’i and England, 1778’. Pacific Studies 7 (1): 91-117. |
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According to SCCS variable 17 ’Money (Media of Exchange) and Credit’, ’No media of exchange or money’ or ’Domestically used articles as media of exchange’ or ’Tokens of conventional value as media of exchange’ or ’Foreign coinage or paper coinage’, or ’Indigenous coinage or paper currency’. The trade economy was monetized during the Brooke Raj and colonial periods only, with the associated introduction of cash crops: ‘Another factor that appears to have been favourably regarded by the Iban, as well as other indigenous groups, was the opportunities that trade offered in acquiring a reserve capital and various prestige items. Trade, which was part of the rationale for pacification, was concerned in Iban areas with jungle produce like rattan and wild rubber which were shipped down-river in return for a counter-stream of items like salt, steel, iron, brass wire and gongs, crockery ware and the highly valued sacred jars of Chinese origin. After this trade had reached some bulk in the 1870’s and until the introduction of cultivated rubber it provided around thirty per cent of the state’s total exports. Rubber, which started to be grown in considerable quantities in the first decade of this century, became the most important of the small-holder cash-crops for the indigenous peoples. To begin with it was planted by many Iban communities in both the Second and the Third Division, but around the middle or late 1920’s non-Christian communities began cutting down their rubber trees. […] Prior to rubber, another cash-crop, coffee, had been grown with some success in the Second Division, notably amongst the Saribas Iban. The overproduction that completely upset the world market in 1897 and the drastic fall in prices, however, put an abrupt end to this endeavour.’
[1]
’With the rubber boom of 1950 this balance was completely disturbed. In September, 1950 (one year after the period we have just been discussing), Chinese traders were travelling all the rivers of the Baleh region in search of Iban rubber, and the price offered at Rumah Nyala was $1.50 per kati. Accepting an average daily output per worker of 5 katis, in September, 1950, the production of rubber had become a pursuit at least three times more profitable than the production of padi. Hulled rice ( brau ) had risen in price to about $2 per gantang. Under these conditions it is difficult to understand, if one is thinking purely in terms of immediate profit and loss, why farming was not abandoned in favour of full-time rubber production. In the Saribas District of the Second Division, indeed, there was a marked tendency in this direction. At Gansurai, a Dayak long-house on the banks of the Layar River, for example, 6 of the 19 bilek families did not grow any padi during the 1950-51 season, and were relying entirely on imported rice which they were able to purchase with money obtained from the sale of rubber. This was no great difficulty. One of the bilek families of Gansurai, employed 11 Malays on a share-cropping basis, and in April, 1951, with rubber at $1.15 per kati, the monthly income of this family was about $1,400.’
[2]
We have therefore assumed that most exchanges took the form of barter prior to Brooke Raj rule.
[1]: Wagner, Ulla 1972. “Colonialism And Iban Warfare”, 41 [2]: Freeman, Derek 1955. “Iban Agriculture: A Report On The Shifting Cultivation Of Hill Rice By The Iban Of Sarawak”, 106 |
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The first foreign Greek or Greek-influenced coinage arrived much later with the Etruscans (if considered "foreign") or Roman Kingdom.
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any reason to change code from earlier periods such as enforcement of a single currency?
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inferred present for Exarchate of Ravenna for same region.
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‘for several centuries [before 1600], Japan’s monetary circulation depended mainly on the import of Chinese bronze coins, making Japan a peripheral zone in a China-centered monetary sphere that extended across East and Southeast Asia.’
[1]
[1]: Metzler, Mark. 2006. Lever of Empire: The International Gold Standard and the Crisis of Liberalism in Prewar Japan. Vol. 17. University of California Press. p.15. |
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previously Chinese coinage had been used but with the introduction of a new indigenous coinage this was no longer needed, although it is possible that some coinage remained in circulation.
[1]
[1]: Metzler, Mark. 2006. Lever of Empire: The International Gold Standard and the Crisis of Liberalism in Prewar Japan. Vol. 17. University of California Press. p.15. |
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Through trade and through tribute, for example from the Seljuks who paid partly in cash.
[1]
[1]: Melville, Charles. “Anatolia under the Mongols.” In The Cambridge History of Turkey, edited by Kate Fleet, Suraiya Faroqhi, and Reşat Kasaba, 51-101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.p.54, p.60 |
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Sources do not suggest that monetary items have been found dating to this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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Sources do not suggest that monetary items have been found dating to this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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’Norwegian coins were present.’
[1]
Given the prior circulation of foreign coins on the island, we have assumed that some monetization occurred during the Norwegian period, but without displacing barter entirely. Both ecclesiastical and secular authorities collected taxes from commoners: ’With like energy he preached the crusade to the Holy Land which had been urged at the Council of Bergen. People were prevailed upon to pay an extra tax of one öln vadmál year for the period of six years to defray the expenses of the undertaking. Bishop Jörund of Hólar was also encouraged by Arni’s example to collect all sorts of dues for the church, and to enforce the provision of the church laws.’
[2]
’This was made especially manifest by the new procedure introduced at this time of summoning people to Norway for trial. [...] The king’s officers also travelled about collecting the royal revenues with greater severity that had hitherto been customary. They reproved the people for appealing to the bishop, and in some cases forbade them to pay as large church dues as the bishop had demanded.’
[3]
Trade with Norway continued, the latter attempting to monopolize the Icelandic exchange with being able to factually guarantee for an uninterrupted flow of goods: ’Trade and economic conditions continued as before without any distinct manifestation either of progress or decline. The destructive civil wars of the Sturlung period had undoubtedly done much to weaken the people’s strength, but and had hampered somewhat their intercourse with foreign lands, but the more peaceful era inaugurated by the union with Norway brought no perceptible change in prevailing conditions. Some scholars have considered the provision in the union agreement that six ships should be sent to Iceland every year as evidence that the commerce with Iceland at this time was declining, but K. Maurer has shown that this conclusion is erroneous. For various reasons few ships would arrive in Iceland during some years, but the same happened also during the most vigorous period of Icelandic national life, as in 1187 and 1219, when the Icelandic annals record that no ship arrived in Iceland. [He proceeds to describe some famines during the Commonwealth Period.] The old spirit of maritime enterprise was dying out among the Icelanders, as among all the Scandinavian peoples. No progress was made in trade or ship-building, and the Hanseatic merchants had already made their appearance as competitors for the control of Scandinavian commerce.’
[4]
’Though few ships might at times arrive in Icelandic harbors, many Norwegian merchantmen usually visited Iceland every year. The Icelandic annals state that in 1340 eleven ships came to Iceland, in 1345 twevle ships, in 1357 eighteen ships besides two which foundered on the voyage. Seagoing vessels were also built in Iceland. Many Icelanders owned ships with which they undoubtedly carried on trade, as had always been their custom, though most of the commerce was now in the hands of Norwegian merchants. But the import trade, which had always been small, could not supply the growing needs of the people. The Icelandic annals show that at times there must have been great need of imports, since it happened that the mass could not be celebrated for want of wine. During years when no ships came to Iceland, or when only one or two arrived each year, the need of articles for which people were wholly dependent on imports must have been very great. Still more deplorable was the inadequacy of imports during periods of famine and other great calamities, when little aid could be given the stricken population. Under ordinary circumstances commerce was probably sufficient to supply the people with the necessary articles, but the meaning of the provision regarding commerce inserted in the "Gamil sáttmáli", and constantly repeated in the union agreement, seems to have been that the Norwegian government should not suffer commerce at any time to fall below the specified minimum amount.’
[5]
[1]: Árni Daniel Júlíusson and Axel Kristissen 2017, pers. comm. to E. Brandl and D. Mullins [2]: Gjerset, Knut [1924]. "History of Iceland", 219 [3]: Gjerset, Knut [1924]. "History of Iceland", 220 [4]: Gjerset, Knut [1924]. "History of Iceland", 209 [5]: Gjerset, Knut [1924]. "History of Iceland", 228p |
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According to Alan Covey: "No evidence of money. I don’t know how one would document “markets”—in the exchange sense or the spatial sense? There is not enough evidence to evaluate exchange systems in the Cuzco region before Inca times, and the study of Inca exchange is steeped in substantivist/Marxian ideology that downplays exchange."
[1]
[1]: (Alan Covey 2015, personal communication) |
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Russian money also became an important medium of exchange: ’Yakut also engaged in the fur trade; by the twentieth century hunters for luxury furs had depleted the ermines, sables, and foxes, and they were relying on squirrels. Yakut merchants and transporters spread throughout the entire northeast, easing communications and trade for natives and Russians. They sold luxuries like silver and gold jewelry and carved bone, ivory, and wood crafts in addition to staples such as butter, meat, and hay. Barter, Russian money, and furs formed the media of exchange. Guns were imported, as was iron for local blacksmiths.’
[1]
Fox, ermine, and deer skins were also sold for money: ’The Yakuts hunt foxes only in autumn and winter by setting up traps and self-released bows. Sometimes foxes get caught in the nooses set up to hares, but rarely perish in the noose trap, since the beam is not sufficiently quick to lift their weight. The fox eats everything: fish, meat, berries, roots, even the carrions of other foxes that got caught in the trap. The fox is far from being a rare animal in the north of the region: I saw one on several occasions near people’s houses and once witnessed a fox running across the yard of the yurta. A fox, especially the darker varieties which are larger, can be easily mistaken for a Yakut dog. The skin of the red fox serves in the north as a unit of exchange. It is priced between 2 and 5 rubles; sivodushka-between 6 & 15 rubles; and the black-brown variety between 25 and 50 rubles. I was shown very beautiful, perfectly black skins with a slight grizzle, for which 120 rubles was paid on the spot.’
[2]
’ERMINE (mustela erminea), kyrnas, belelyakh, is the animal most hunted for the purposes of trade. It is found in all parts of the country, on the tableland and in the tundra. Increase and decrease in the numbers of this animal depend probably on the amount of available food. In winter it comes near human dwellings, gets into the granaries, and eats and carriesaway meat and fish. It is caught by special traps called hlopushi (chirkan - a mouse trap). The ermine is a predatory, bold, and curious animal. When irritated it will attack even human beings. Cases are known of the ermine inflicting serious wounds on people, for it attempts to cut through the blood vessels on the neck, where it ascends with exceptional speed and agility. The ermine skin is priced between 2 and 5 cents and is used as the smallest exchange unit.’
[3]
’Deer meat is most delicious in September and October, and during this period the deer’s fur is regarded as at its best. The northern deer’s fur is considered warmer than that of the domesticated deer. On the spot the skin of the wild deer brings between 1 ruble and 2 rubles and 50 cents. The Yakuts hunt the deer with guns, or by setting up self-releasing bows. Pit-traps are not used by the Yakuts in hunting this or any other animal.’
[4]
Russian money was also at least occasionally used in dealings among the Yakut themselves: ’I at least never heard anything about a wealthy shaman; on the contrary, the shaman often gets no more than 5 kopeks for healing a sick eye. And how little is this sum worth north of Yakutsk! Some Yakuts refused to accept a twenty kopeks coin for a hazel-hen I wanted to buy, saying that they could not manage to use the money; if it had an eye, they would have used it as a button; but as there was no such, I was to take it back. The smallest unit for them is the ruble.’
[5]
[1]: Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam and Skoggard, Ian: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Yakut [2]: Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 275 [3]: Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 280 [4]: Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 290 [5]: Priklonski, Vasilij, and Friedrich S. Krauss 1888. “Shamanism Among The Yakut", 175 |
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coded present for previous period.
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found no mention yet of single currency system. as trade center would have had many foreign visitors who would have bought and used coinage if there were no single currency system.
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Aden was an exceptionally busy international port where all sorts of exchanges likely took place.
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e.g. silver coin from Athens. Fixed silver coinage based on Athenian standards also introduced to aid trade with the West.
[1]
[2]
[1]: Yarshater, CHI Ehasan. The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 3 (1, 2) the Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods. Cambridge (University Press), 1983. pp. 240-241 [2]: Sidky, H. The Greek Kingdom of Bactria: From Alexander to Eucratides the Great. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2000, p.135. |
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The Kidarite monetary system "created favourable conditions for maintaining the established traditions in local trades. ... flourishing international trade networks and wide trading links between various regions of the Kidarite state."
[1]
[1]: (Zeimal 1996, 136) Zeimal, E. V. The Kidarite Kingdom In Central Asia. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.123-137. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf |
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ducats, florins
[1]
[1]: (Maltby 2009, 35) Maltby, William S. 2009. The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Empire. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://www.zotero.org/groups/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/SUSVXWVH |
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Roman and Parthian coins were found in a burial dating from the early 1st century CE at Tillya Tepe, apparently ’the family cemetery of the rulers of one of the larger Kushan princedoms’.
[1]
Roman coins: "coins of the second and third centuries B.C. from towns on the Black Sea, such as Pantiapaion and Olbia, have been found in Western Zungaria; and in the Chinese province of Shen-si copper coins of Roman Emperors from Tiberius to Aurelian have turned up. Roman coins were also very common in Sogdiana. Thus the portrayal of the young Romulus and Remus with the wolf appearing on coins minted by Constantine, was copied on Sogdian brakteati."
[2]
[1]: (Sarianidi 1985 in Hill 2009, 336-37) John E. Hill. 2009. Through the Jade Gate to Rome: A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty, 1st to 2nd Centuries CE. An Annotated Translation of the Chronicle on the ’Western Regions’ from the Hou Hanshu. Charleston, SC: BookSurge Publishing. [2]: (Haussig 1971, 104) Haussig, H W. trans Hussey, J M. 1971. History of Byzantine Civilization. Thames and Hudson. |
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Inferred absent. Coinage invented in Anatolia around time of the Spring and Autumn Period but such coins, even if they reached China, more likely would have been prized for precious metal content.
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"Byzantine gold coin of Anastasius I discovered in suspected tomb of Emperor Jiemin of Northern Wei."
[1]
[1]: (Ashkenazy, G. 2013. http://primaltrek.com/blog/2013/10/31/byzantine-gold-coin-found-in-tomb-of-emperor-jiemin-of-northern-wei/ referencing Chinese news report: http://collection.sina.com.cn/yjjj/20131025/1107131225.shtml) |
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No coinage in region until Lydia.
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We have assumed that the above were more characteristic of exchanges between white traders and Iroquois than currency that whites brought with them.
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According to SCCS variable 17 ’Money (Media of Exchange) and Credit’, ‘1’ or ’No media of exchange or money’ was present, not ’Domestically used articles as media of exchange’ or ’Tokens of conventional value as media of exchange’ or ’Foreign coinage or paper coinage’, or ’Indigenous coinage or paper currency’. Rivet reports some monetization of the tsantsa trade: ’The first tsantsas coming to Europe had their hour [72] of renown and attained extraordinary prices. In 1865, one of them was sold for 1500 francs ( ). Ten years ago another was sold at auction for 500 francs at the Hotél Drouot ( ). Actually, these objects are much less rare and have lost a part of their commercial value. At Macas, at Gualaquiza and at Zamora, the whites buy them directly from the Indians for ten sucres, that is 25 francs, and take them to Cuenca, Riobamba and Loja, where they resell them for 30 to 50 sucres, that is 75 to 125 francs. In Europe, the best examples are worth 200 and 300 francs and there is not an important museum that does not possess at least one. In Paris, the Museum of Natural History has five of them, the Anthropological Society one, the Ethnographic Museum of the Trocadero three, the Army Museum one, and also there are a good number in private collections.’
[1]
It remains to be confirmed how common this was in direct exchanges between settlers/traders and Indians.
[1]: Rivet, Paul 1908. “Jivaro Indians: Geographic, Historical And Ethnographic Research”, 71p |
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"In pre-modern times, two distinct currencies always existed side by side, serving distinct needs within different social classes - high-value money, usually gold or pure silver coins, and the petty coinage, usually debased silver, billon, or copper coins. Geographically well-defined borders of currency zones hardly existed. If they did exist then it was for economic and fiscal reasons."
[1]
[1]: (Heidemann 2009, 276 [4]) |
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Coinage was imported
[1]
: "foreign coins were imported into Aksum from South Arabian, Roman, and Indian sources."
[2]
From trade Aksum acquired Roman silver coins (found at Matara) and gold coins from the Kushan Empire.
[3]
[1]: (Glazier and Peacock 2016) Darren Glazier. David Peacock. Historical background and previous investigations. David Peacock. Lucy Blue. eds. 2016. The Ancient Red Sea Port of Adulis, Eritrea: Results of the Eritro-British Expedition, 2004-5. Oxbow Books. Oxford. [2]: (Connah 2016, 146) Graham Connah. 2016. African Civilizations: An Archaeological Perspective. Third Edition. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. [3]: (Kobishanov 1981, 388) Y M. Kobishanov. Aksum: political system, economics and culture, first to fourth century. Muḥammad Jamal al-Din Mokhtar. ed. 1981. UNESCO General History of Africa. Volume II. Heinemann. UNESCO. California. |
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|
ccording to SCCS variable 17 ’Money (Media of Exchange) and Credit’, ’4’ Foreign coinage or paper currency was present, not ‘1’ ’No media of exchange or money’, ’Domestically used articles as media of exchange’ or ’Tokens of conventional value as media of exchange’ or ’Indigenous coinage or paper currency’. Money was introduced by the colonial administration: ’The impact of these economic changes upon the Trukese was great. Just as under the Germans law and order were made the province of the administration, a step which can be reversed (without chaos) only by a long and intelligently directed course of evolution, so under the Japanese the step to a money economy and dependence upon some categories of imported goods was carried far enough beyond the German beginnings so that it too has become irreversible. While the Trukese were not indoctrinated in the more skilled techniques, such as deep-sea fishing and boat-building, there were many jobs available at manual labor, an ever-increasing flow of trade goods upon which to spend the earnings thereof, and head taxes to assure that those who did not work cut copra. The Trukese began to travel more and more on Japanese boats (many of which they have now taken over and operate), to use a wider variety of Japanese tools, to eat (although not depend upon) rice and canned fish, and to wear clothese exclusively of foreign material.’
[1]
[1]: Gladwin, Thomas, and Seymour Bernard Sarason 1953. “Truk: Man In Paradise”, 43 |
||||||
|
’Needless to say, there was no money (in Diamond’s words, no "abstract, intrinsically valueless medium for appropriating surplus, storing value, and deferring payment or delaying exchange") in precontact Hawai’i’.
[1]
[1]: (Trask 1983, 99) Haunani-Kay Trask. 1983. ’Cultures in Collision: Hawai’i and England, 1778’. Pacific Studies 7 (1): 91-117. |
||||||
|
According to SCCS variable 17 ’Money (Media of Exchange) and Credit’, ’No media of exchange or money’ or ’Domestically used articles as media of exchange’ or ’Tokens of conventional value as media of exchange’ or ’Foreign coinage or paper coinage’, or ’Indigenous coinage or paper currency’. The trade economy was monetized during the Brooke Raj and colonial periods, with the associated introduction of cash crops: ‘Another factor that appears to have been favourably regarded by the Iban, as well as other indigenous groups, was the opportunities that trade offered in acquiring a reserve capital and various prestige items. Trade, which was part of the rationale for pacification, was concerned in Iban areas with jungle produce like rattan and wild rubber which were shipped down-river in return for a counter-stream of items like salt, steel, iron, brass wire and gongs, crockery ware and the highly valued sacred jars of Chinese origin. After this trade had reached some bulk in the 1870’s and until the introduction of cultivated rubber it provided around thirty per cent of the state’s total exports. Rubber, which started to be grown in considerable quantities in the first decade of this century, became the most important of the small-holder cash-crops for the indigenous peoples. To begin with it was planted by many Iban communities in both the Second and the Third Division, but around the middle or late 1920’s non-Christian communities began cutting down their rubber trees. […] Prior to rubber, another cash-crop, coffee, had been grown with some success in the Second Division, notably amongst the Saribas Iban. The overproduction that completely upset the world market in 1897 and the drastic fall in prices, however, put an abrupt end to this endeavour.’
[1]
’With the rubber boom of 1950 this balance was completely disturbed. In September, 1950 (one year after the period we have just been discussing), Chinese traders were travelling all the rivers of the Baleh region in search of Iban rubber, and the price offered at Rumah Nyala was $1.50 per kati. Accepting an average daily output per worker of 5 katis, in September, 1950, the production of rubber had become a pursuit at least three times more profitable than the production of padi. Hulled rice ( brau ) had risen in price to about $2 per gantang. Under these conditions it is difficult to understand, if one is thinking purely in terms of immediate profit and loss, why farming was not abandoned in favour of full-time rubber production. In the Saribas District of the Second Division, indeed, there was a marked tendency in this direction. At Gansurai, a Dayak long-house on the banks of the Layar River, for example, 6 of the 19 bilek families did not grow any padi during the 1950-51 season, and were relying entirely on imported rice which they were able to purchase with money obtained from the sale of rubber. This was no great difficulty. One of the bilek families of Gansurai, employed 11 Malays on a share-cropping basis, and in April, 1951, with rubber at $1.15 per kati, the monthly income of this family was about $1,400.’
[2]
[1]: Wagner, Ulla 1972. “Colonialism And Iban Warfare”, 41 [2]: Freeman, Derek 1955. “Iban Agriculture: A Report On The Shifting Cultivation Of Hill Rice By The Iban Of Sarawak”, 106 |
||||||
|
According to SCCS variable 17 ’Money (Media of Exchange) and Credit’, ’4’ Foreign coinage or paper currency was present, not ‘1’ ’No media of exchange or money’, ’Domestically used articles as media of exchange’ or ’Tokens of conventional value as media of exchange’ or ’Indigenous coinage or paper currency’. Money was introduced by the colonial administration: ’The impact of these economic changes upon the Trukese was great. Just as under the Germans law and order were made the province of the administration, a step which can be reversed (without chaos) only by a long and intelligently directed course of evolution, so under the Japanese the step to a money economy and dependence upon some categories of imported goods was carried far enough beyond the German beginnings so that it too has become irreversible. While the Trukese were not indoctrinated in the more skilled techniques, such as deep-sea fishing and boat-building, there were many jobs available at manual labor, an ever-increasing flow of trade goods upon which to spend the earnings thereof, and head taxes to assure that those who did not work cut copra. The Trukese began to travel more and more on Japanese boats (many of which they have now taken over and operate), to use a wider variety of Japanese tools, to eat (although not depend upon) rice and canned fish, and to wear clothese exclusively of foreign material.’
[1]
Barter was not displaced entirely.
[1]: Gladwin, Thomas, and Seymour Bernard Sarason 1953. “Truk: Man In Paradise”, 43 |
||||||
|
Local mint in Provins operated since the 10th century. By 1170s CE provided the dominant currency in Eastern France and widely used as far as central Italy.
[1]
Minted silver deniers, called provinois
[2]
These were the coins of the Champagne Fairs
[2]
[1]: (Spufford 2006, 146) [2]: (Spufford 2006, 149) |
||||||
|
monnaie de Marsaille and monnaie gauloise finds within France 560-500 BCE but not close to Paris Bain region.
[1]
[1]: (http://www.chronocarto.ens.fr/gcserver/atlas#) |
||||||
|
No Greek, Roman or Other coins currently present on chronocarto database until 250-175 BCE period.
[1]
[1]: (http://www.chronocarto.ens.fr/gcserver/atlas#) |
||||||
|
Foreign coins in circulation due to payments made to Celtic mercenaries who fought for Carthage, Greece and Rome. Particularly large and diverse hoard found in Moravia.
[1]
No Greek, Roman or Other coins currently present on chronocarto database until 250-175 BCE period.
[2]
[1]: (Kruta 2004, 85) [2]: (http://www.chronocarto.ens.fr/gcserver/atlas#) |
||||||
|
Foreign coins in circulation due to payments made to Celtic mercenaries who fought for Carthage, Greece and Rome. Particularly large and diverse hoard found in Moravia.
[1]
Mainly Greek and Roman.
[2]
[1]: (Kruta 2004, 85) [2]: (http://www.chronocarto.ens.fr/gcserver/atlas#) |
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|
"Gift-giving and receiving do not rule out other kinds of exchange, but trade in the Rig Vedic context was probably minimal. Barter was the mode of exchange and cattle an important unit of value. The word nishka seems to have meant ’a piece of gold’ or ’gold necklace’, and there is no indication of the use of coins."
[1]
[1]: Singh, U. (2008) A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India, From the Stone Age to the 12th Century. Dorling Kindersley: Delhi. p191 |
||||||
|
"Before the early nineteenth century the Royal Mint’s role was largely domestic. Britain’s North American colonies had gained the right to issue their own coinage ... while in South Asia the East India Company had been allowed since the late seventeeth century to ’purchase’ permission from local Indian rulers to reproduce coins that followed India as opposed to English conventions."
[1]
"domestic British coin became increasingly an ’imperial currency’, circulating throughout much of the Empire. ... in the course of the nineteeth century, the Mint began producing a variety of dedicated colonial as well as other foreign coinages, designated ’private’ by the Mint, and paid for by the overseas customers. From 1883 the Treasury encouraged all colonies to obtain their local currencies from the Mint."
[2]
[1]: (Stockwell 2018, 45-46) Sarah Stockwell. 2018. The British End of the British Empire. Cambridge University PRess. Cambridge. [2]: (Stockwell 2018, 46) Sarah Stockwell. 2018. The British End of the British Empire. Cambridge University PRess. Cambridge. |
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|
Epigraphic evidence from many regions of the island and archeological finds attest to the use of monetary values from at least the turn of the 6th century. The first coins to be used were the Aiginetans as result of the close relations between Aigina and the Cretan city of Kydonia (West Crete).
[1]
[1]: Stefanakis, M. I. 1999. "The introduction of coinage in Crete and the beginning of local minting," in Chaniotis, A. (ed.), From Minoan Farmers to Roman Traders. Sidelights on the Economy of Ancient Crete, Stuttgart, 247-68. |
||||||
|
Epigraphic evidence from many regions of the island and archeological finds attest to the use of monetary values from at least the turn of the 6th century. The first coins to be used were the Aiginetans as result of the close relations between Aigina and the Cretan city of Kydonia (West Crete)
[1]
[1]: Stefanakis, M. I. 1999. "The introduction of coinage in Crete and the beginning of local minting," in Chaniotis, A. (ed.), From Minoan Farmers to Roman Traders. Sidelights on the Economy of Ancient Crete, Stuttgart, 247-68. |
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|
Foreign coins found in the island are Ptolemaic series issued in the 3rd century BCE, Hellenistic coins of Athens, coins from the Aegean islands, the cities of mainland Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor, Syria, Cyrenaica, and Carthage.
[1]
[1]: Le Ride, G. 1966. Monnaies Crétoises du Ve au Ier Sicècle av. J.-C. (Études Crétoises XV), Paris, 265-67. |
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|
’Needless to say, there was no money (in Diamond’s words, no "abstract, intrinsically valueless medium for appropriating surplus, storing value, and deferring payment or delaying exchange") in precontact Hawai’i’.
[1]
[1]: (Trask 1983, 99) Haunani-Kay Trask. 1983. ’Cultures in Collision: Hawai’i and England, 1778’. Pacific Studies 7 (1): 91-117. |
||||||
|
Greek and later Roman coinage would have been typical, and the Temple tax (see below) was paid exclusively with Tyrian coins.
[1]
Two Roman silver denarii have been found with likely allusions to the Hasmoneans, including one marked "BACCIUS JUDAEAS"; possibly they were used in trade between Rome and Judea. (Repeatedly referenced in nonacademic discussions, but I have not found the original source.)
[1]: Regev (2013:74). |
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|
After the introduction of foreign currency, barter was increasingly displaced by monetized exchange, but did not die out completely. Brass objects were particularly valuable. But this process did not predate colonization: ‘One of the significant economic transition brought about by the development of markets in Garo Hills is the gradual change over from barter to money economy.’
[1]
During the colonial and early independence periods, barter trade was gradually displaced by monetized exchange. The coins and bank notes used were of Koch, colonial and national origin. ‘This shows how due to the adoption of permanent cultivation the cash income position from crop sales in Wajadagiri has improved.’
[2]
The Zamindars attempted to tax parts of the A’chik population: ‘In pre-British days the areas adjacent to the present habitat of the Garo were under the Zeminders of Karaibari, Kalumalupara, Habraghat, Mechpara and Sherpore. Garos of the adjoining areas had to struggle constantly with these Zeminders. Whenever the employees of the Zeminders tried to collect taxes or to oppress the Garo in some way or other, they retaliated by coming down to the plains and murdering ryots of the Zeminders. In 1775-76 the Zeminders of Mechpara and Karaibari led expeditions to the hills near about their Zeminderies and subjugated a portion of what is at present the Garo Hills district. The Zeminder of Karaibari appointed Rengtha or Pagla, a Garo as his subordinate.’
[3]
The precise nature of these taxes still need to be established.
[1]: Alam, K. 1995. “Markets Of Garo Hills: An Assessment Of Their Socio-Economic Implications”, 112 [2]: Majumdar, Dhirendra Narayan 1978. “Culture Change In Two Garo Villages”, 106 [3]: Majumdar, Dhirendra Narayan 1978. “Culture Change In Two Garo Villages”, 29 |
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|
According to SCCS variable 17 ’Money (Media of Exchange) and Credit’ is coded as ’Foreign coinage or paper currency’ ‘One of the significant economic transition brought about by the development of markets in Garo Hills is the gradual change over from barter to money economy.’
[1]
Cash crops, such as cotton, are sold at local markets. During the colonial and early independence periods, barter trade was gradually displaced by monetized exchange. The coins and bank notes used were of Koch, colonial and national origin. ‘This shows how due to the adoption of permanent cultivation the cash income position from crop sales in Wajadagiri has improved.’
[2]
[1]: Alam, K. 1995. “Markets Of Garo Hills: An Assessment Of Their Socio-Economic Implications”, 112 [2]: Majumdar, Dhirendra Narayan 1978. “Culture Change In Two Garo Villages”, 106 |
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|
"The Mesopotamians did not use coinage (invented in Asia Minor in the seventh century B.C.E.) but employed various commodities as media of exchange and measures of value: occasionally gold, copper, and tin, but most commonly silver and grain. The value of goods entrusted to merchants was reckoned in weights of silver or volumes of barley, as was that of the commodities that the merchants brought back from their expeditions. Silver rings, coils of silver wire that could easily be cut into pieces, and other small units (often of 5 shekels weight) were regularly used in transactions, the requisite quantity of silver being weighed out to make a purchase or pay for a service."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 132) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
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|
"The Mesopotamians did not use coinage (invented in Asia Minor in the seventh century B.C.E.) but employed various commodities as media of exchange and measures of value: occasionally gold, copper, and tin, but most commonly silver and grain. The value of goods entrusted to merchants was reckoned in weights of silver or volumes of barley, as was that of the commodities that the merchants brought back from their expeditions. Silver rings, coils of silver wire that could easily be cut into pieces, and other small units (often of 5 shekels weight) were regularly used in transactions, the requisite quantity of silver being weighed out to make a purchase or pay for a service."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 132) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
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|
Foreign coins circulated freely alongside the Seleucid silver coinage (mainly ‘tetradrachms’).
[1]
[2]
[1]: Holt, F. 2007. Review of ‘The Seleukid Royal Economy: The Finances and Financial Administration of the Seleukid Empire’ by Aperghis, G. G. The Classical Journal. 102 (2) pp180-181 [2]: Aperghis, G. G. 2004. The Seleukid Royal Economy: The Finances and Financial Administration of the Seleukid Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p78 |
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|
"The Mesopotamians did not use coinage (invented in Asia Minor in the seventh century B.C.E.) but employed various commodities as media of exchange and measures of value: occasionally gold, copper, and tin, but most commonly silver and grain. The value of goods entrusted to merchants was reckoned in weights of silver or volumes of barley, as was that of the commodities that the merchants brought back from their expeditions. Silver rings, coils of silver wire that could easily be cut into pieces, and other small units (often of 5 shekels weight) were regularly used in transactions, the requisite quantity of silver being weighed out to make a purchase or pay for a service."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 132) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
||||||
|
"The Mesopotamians did not use coinage (invented in Asia Minor in the seventh century B.C.E.) but employed various commodities as media of exchange and measures of value: occasionally gold, copper, and tin, but most commonly silver and grain. The value of goods entrusted to merchants was reckoned in weights of silver or volumes of barley, as was that of the commodities that the merchants brought back from their expeditions. Silver rings, coils of silver wire that could easily be cut into pieces, and other small units (often of 5 shekels weight) were regularly used in transactions, the requisite quantity of silver being weighed out to make a purchase or pay for a service."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 132) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
||||||
|
"The Mesopotamians did not use coinage (invented in Asia Minor in the seventh century B.C.E.) but employed various commodities as media of exchange and measures of value: occasionally gold, copper, and tin, but most commonly silver and grain. The value of goods entrusted to merchants was reckoned in weights of silver or volumes of barley, as was that of the commodities that the merchants brought back from their expeditions. Silver rings, coils of silver wire that could easily be cut into pieces, and other small units (often of 5 shekels weight) were regularly used in transactions, the requisite quantity of silver being weighed out to make a purchase or pay for a service."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 132) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
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|
" Despite the appearance in Cairo in August 1434/Muharram 838 of an Aqquyunlu envoy with a few token coins minted in al-Ashraf Barsbay’s name, the news of the resumption of Aqquyunlu raids on the Euphrates salient in conjunction with another Timurid thrust into Azarbayjan bespoke the complete failure of al-Ashraf Barsbay’s vendetta against Qara ’Usman."
[1]
[1]: (Woods 1998, 53) |
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|
"The few ninth and tenth century hoards of precious coin recovered in Bilad al-Sham reveal the continuing unified nature of the monetary system in the Islamic world, even though political unity was lost with the progressive disintegration of the Abbasid caliphate."
[1]
Bilad al-Sham is in Syria and not within the region occupied by the Buyids; however Buyid coins are well represented in coin hoards found here.
[1]: (Walmsley 2000, 339) Walmsley, Alan "Regional Trade in the Islamic East Mediterranean" in Hansen, Inge Lyse. Wickham, Chris eds. 2000. The Long Eighth Century. BRILL. |
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|
[1]
[1]: (Wenke 1981, 314) Wenke, Robert J. 1981. Elymeans, Parthians, and the Evolution of Empires in Southwestern Iran. Journal of the American Oriental Society. Vol. 101. No. 3. Jul-Sep. American Oriental Society. pp. 303-315. http://www.jstor.org/stable/602592 |
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|
"The Seljuks were not interested in enforcing conformity to the practices or ideals of an imperial centre. The empire did not even have a uniform currency ..."
[1]
e.g. coins acquired through booty and tribute.
[2]
[1]: (Peacock 2015, 8) Peacock, A C S. 2015. Edinburgh University Press Ltd. Edinburgh. [2]: Cahen, Claude. The Formation of Turkey: The Seljukid Sultanate of Rūm: Eleventh to Fourteenth Century. Translated by P. M. Holt. A History of the Near East. Harlow, England: Longman, 2001, Pp.95-96. |
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|
The first foreign Greek or Greek-influenced coinage arrived much later with the Etruscans (if considered "foreign") or Roman Kingdom.
|
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|
Greek coinage was present in Rome and the first Roman coin was based on the Greek style. Coin production spread from Asia minor, where it originated in the late 7th BCE, "to Greek colonies in southern Italy by 500 BC. These coins came to be made of pure silver formed between obverse and reverse dies. Bronze coins were first minted in the Greek areas of southern Italy."
[1]
However this was after this polity’s temporal span, currency not present in this period.
[1]: (Adkins and Adkins 1994, 305) Adkins, Lesley. Adkins, Roy A. 1998. Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome. Oxford University Press. Oxford. |
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|
Cosmopolitan commerce centers: Timbuktu, Djenne, Biru, Soo, Ndob, Pekes and some others.
[1]
Currency "consisted of salt, cowries, or gold in either dust or pieces (of foreign or local mintage)."
[2]
[1]: (Diop 1987, 132-133) Diop, Cheikh Anta. Salemson, Harold trans. 1987. Precolonial Black Africa. Lawrence Hill Books. Chicago. [2]: (Diop 1987, 133) Diop, Cheikh Anta. Salemson, Harold trans. 1987. Precolonial Black Africa. Lawrence Hill Books. Chicago. |
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|
‘for several centuries [before 1600], Japan’s monetary circulation depended mainly on the import of Chinese bronze coins, making Japan a peripheral zone in a China-centered monetary sphere that extended across East and Southeast Asia.’
[1]
’The importance of trade with Ming China to the political, cultural, and economic life of Muromachi Japan has been dealt with extensively elsewhere. It has been suggested that in addition to the "enormous profits" derived from it, the trade gave to the bakufu monopoly control over the Chinese coins imported into Japan and thereby a status equivalent to that of a central mint.’
[2]
[1]: Metzler, Mark. 2006. Lever of Empire: The International Gold Standard and the Crisis of Liberalism in Prewar Japan. Vol. 17. University of California Press. p.15. [2]: Yamamura, Kozo (ed). 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 3. Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press [sixth edition].p.223 |
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|
The minting of 708 CE was modeled on the Tang currency "which has been found in Japan in reasonable quantities, suggesting its use before the local discovery of copper and establishment of a mint for issuing local silver and copper currency."
[1]
[1]: (Higham 2009, 84) Higham, Charles. 2009. Encylopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations. Infobase Publishing. |
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|
’The government seems to have tried to regain control of the currency by its frequent minting of new coins, and also by reducing the disparity between the legal value of the coinage and its actual metallic worth. But despite all efforts, the coins fell rapidly out of use after the last minting in 958, replaced in the late Heian period by imports of Chinese coins, especially the copper coins of Northern Sung.
[1]
[1]: Shively, Donald H. and McCullough, William H. 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan Volume 2: Heian Japan. Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press.p.164 |
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|
‘for several centuries [before 1600], Japan’s monetary circulation depended mainly on the import of Chinese bronze coins, making Japan a peripheral zone in a China-centered monetary sphere that extended across East and Southeast Asia.’
[1]
’From late Heian to early Kamakura times, the court had forbidden metal currency and prohibited the circulation of "new coins," that is, Southern Sung coins, in order to control prices. In ...1199[CE], the year of Minamoto Yoritomo’s death, the Southern Sung also prohibited the export of Sung copper coins by Japanese and Koryo merchants. At that time copper coins were not used as money in trade transactions but were exchanged for goods of equivalent value...However, with the development of various forces of production and the expansion of commerce, the demand for a circulating currency increased. The court was thus forced to recognize the great importance of the Sung coins’
[2]
’The tremendous outflow of Sung coins to Japan as well as to various parts of Asia aggravated the economic crisis throughout the Southern Sung, causing the government to adopt stringent regulations to curtail the flow of copper coins to Japan. The excessive exporting necessary to obtain the Sung coins also disrupted the Japanese economy.’
[3]
[1]: Metzler, Mark. 2006. Lever of Empire: The International Gold Standard and the Crisis of Liberalism in Prewar Japan. Vol. 17. University of California Press. p.15. [2]: Yamamura, Kozo (ed). 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 3. Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press [sixth edition].p.408 [3]: Yamamura, Kozo (ed). 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 3. Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press [sixth edition].p.409 |
||||||
|
The minting of 708 CE was modeled on the Tang currency "which has been found in Japan in reasonable quantities, suggesting its use before the local discovery of copper and establishment of a mint for issuing local silver and copper currency."
[1]
[1]: (Higham 2009, 84) Higham, Charles. 2009. Encylopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations. Infobase Publishing. |
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|
During the reign of Ibrahim "a single system of coinage with different denominations circulated throughout the Western Karakhanid Khanate, creating good, stable market conditions."
[1]
-- presumably present before Ibrahim, if Ibrahim created the single monetary system (if that is what "a single system of coinage" means).
[1]: (Davidovich 1997, 136) Davidovich, E A. in Asimov, M S and Bosworth, C E eds. 1997. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume IV. Part I. UNESCO. |
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|
’The economy of Angkor, now receiving detailed scholarly attention is somewhat peculiar because, unlike most neighbouring states, the empire never used money of any kind.’
[1]
’During this era, polities in Java and Sumatra developed multiple shipping ports, hosted foreign merchants, and established coinage (Christie 1999). The Khmer empire never developed a standardized currency, instead using exchange equivalents in gold, silver, rice, cloth, cattle, butter and slaves (Sedov 1978:125), and remained a marginal player in the China-Southeast Asia trade network.’
[2]
[1]: (Chandler 2008, p.9) [2]: (Stark, Miriam 2010, p. 161) |
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|
’In China’s Song dynasty (AD 960-1279), contemporaneous with the period most closely associated with that height of the Khmer empire, records of Khmer tributary missions are scare compared to missions reported for neighbouring polities including Champa (central Vietnam) and southern Sumatra (Wong 1979). During this era, polities in Java and Sumatra developed multiple shipping ports, hosted foreign merchants, and established coinage (Christie 1999). The Khmer empire never developed a standardized currency, instead using exchange equivalents in gold, silver, rice, cloth, cattle, butter and slaves (Sedov 1978:125), and remained a marginal player in the China-Southeast Asia trade network.’
[1]
[1]: (Stark, Miriam 2010, p. 161) |
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|
’In China’s Song dynasty (AD 960-1279), contemporaneous with the period most closely associated with that height of the Khmer empire, records of Khmer tributary missions are scare compared to missions reported for neighbouring polities including Champa (central Vietnam) and southern Sumatra (Wong 1979). During this era, polities in Java and Sumatra developed multiple shipping ports, hosted foreign merchants, and established coinage (Christie 1999). The Khmer empire never developed a standardized currency, instead using exchange equivalents in gold, silver, rice, cloth, cattle, butter and slaves (Sedov 1978:125), and remained a marginal player in the China-Southeast Asia trade network.’
[1]
[1]: (Stark, Miriam 2010, p. 161) |
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|
’In China’s Song dynasty (AD 960-1279), contemporaneous with the period most closely associated with that height of the Khmer empire, records of Khmer tributary missions are scare compared to missions reported for neighbouring polities including Champa (central Vietnam) and southern Sumatra (Wong 1979). During this era, polities in Java and Sumatra developed multiple shipping ports, hosted foreign merchants, and established coinage (Christie 1999). The Khmer empire never developed a standardized currency, instead using exchange equivalents in gold, silver, rice, cloth, cattle, butter and slaves (Sedov 1978:125), and remained a marginal player in the China-Southeast Asia trade network.’
[1]
[1]: (Stark, Miriam 2010, p. 161) |
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|
’Two Roman medallions of the Emperors Marcus Aurelius (121-180 C.E.) and Antoninus Pius (86-161 C.E.), together with carnelian ornaments, evi- dence trade involving the Roman Empire. There are also Iranian COINAGE and a Chinese mirror.’
[1]
’Roman coins found at the site [near the modern Vietnamese village of Oc-Eco in the Mekong Delta] and at Angkor Borei date from the second and third centuries, and some Indian artefacts, including seals and jewelry, can be dated to the same period.’
[2]
’There were two Roman medallions bearing the images of Marcus Aurelius (161-180) and Antonius Pius (138-161), Iranian coinage, and rings and seals bearing inscriptions in the Brahmi script of India.’ The style of the Indian writings covers the first to the fifth centuries AD.’
[3]
’The first extends approximately from the first to the third centuries AD and provides firm evidence of trade within the region and also with India and beyond, since a gold medallion depicting the Roman emperor Antonius Pius and dated 152 AD was among the items unearthed. At this level there was no sign of Hinduism or Buddhism.’
[4]
’The coinage found at the O ́ c Eo excavations further substantiates O ́ c Eo’s contacts with the regions to its west (Malleret: 1959-1963, 3:948-49; Gut- man: 1978; Wicks: 1985, 196-99; Miksic: 2003a, 23-24). Notable among the coins recovered, most of which date to the second-to-fourth-century period, are silver conch/Srivatsa (an auspicious Indian symbol of fertility and abundance usually associated with Sri Laksmi or a tuft of hair on Visnu’s chest) weighing 8.3 to 8.6 grams, as well as later Rising Sun/Srivatsa coins weighing 9.2 to 9.4 grams, all of which originated in the coastal region of southern Burma. At O ́ c Eo, sixty-eight to seventy wedge-shaped pieces cut from Rising Sun/Srivatsa coins were recovered, and it is thought that the cut portions were used as fractional coinage in local marketplace transactions. Since no similar cut portions of the Burma silver coins (or of any other coin- age from that era) have been recovered in Burma or Thailand, this evidence substantiates the Funan coast’s greater importance at this time, due to its need for smaller-denomination currency to sustain local exchange (Wicks: 1985, 196-99; Miksic: 2003a, 24).’
[5]
[1]: (Higham 2004, p. 246) [2]: (Chandler 2008, p. 19) [3]: (Higham 2012b, p. 590) [4]: (Jacques and Lafond 2007, p. 52) [5]: (Hall 2010, p. 58) |
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|
The system closest to coinage ever practiced in Mesoamerica was the widespread use of cacao beans and copper axes as media of exchange during the Postclassic.
[1]
[1]: Berdan, Frances F., Marilyn A. Masson, Janine Gasco, and Michael E. Smith. (2003) "An International Economy." In Michael E. Smith and Frances F. Berdan (eds.) The Postclassic Mesoamerican World. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, pg. 102. |
||||||
|
’Two Roman medallions of the Emperors Marcus Aurelius (121-180 C.E.) and Antoninus Pius (86-161 C.E.), together with carnelian ornaments, evi- dence trade involving the Roman Empire. There are also Iranian COINAGE and a Chinese mirror.’
[1]
’Roman coins found at the site [near the modern Vietnamese village of Oc-Eco in the Mekong Delta] and at Angkor Borei date from the second and third centuries, and some Indian artefacts, including seals and jewelry, can be dated to the same period.’
[2]
’There were two Roman medallions bearing the images of Marcus Aurelius (161-180) and Antonius Pius (138-161), Iranian coinage, and rings and seals bearing inscriptions in the Brahmi script of India.’ The style of the Indian writings covers the first to the fifth centuries AD.’
[3]
’The first extends approximately from the first to the third centuries AD and provides firm evidence of trade within the region and also with India and beyond, since a gold medallion depicting the Roman emperor Antonius Pius and dated 152 AD was among the items unearthed. At this level there was no sign of Hinduism or Buddhism.’
[4]
[1]: (Higham 2004, p. 246) [2]: (Chandler 2008, p. 19) [3]: (Higham 2012b, p. 590) [4]: (Jacques and Lafond 2007, p. 52) |
||||||
|
Cosmopolitan commerce centers: Timbuktu, Djenne, Biru, Soo, Ndob, Pekes and some others.
[1]
Currency "consisted of salt, cowries, or gold in either dust or pieces (of foreign or local mintage)."
[2]
[1]: (Diop 1987, 132-133) Diop, Cheikh Anta. Salemson, Harold trans. 1987. Precolonial Black Africa. Lawrence Hill Books. Chicago. [2]: (Diop 1987, 133) Diop, Cheikh Anta. Salemson, Harold trans. 1987. Precolonial Black Africa. Lawrence Hill Books. Chicago. |
||||||
|
Some coins imported from Arabic polities? Cosmopolitan commerce centers: Timbuktu, Djenne, Biru, Soo, Ndob, Pekes and some others.
[1]
Currency "consisted of salt, cowries, or gold in either dust or pieces (of foreign or local mintage)."
[2]
[1]: (Diop 1987, 132-133) Diop, Cheikh Anta. Salemson, Harold trans. 1987. Precolonial Black Africa. Lawrence Hill Books. Chicago. [2]: (Diop 1987, 133) Diop, Cheikh Anta. Salemson, Harold trans. 1987. Precolonial Black Africa. Lawrence Hill Books. Chicago. |
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|
Treasury of coins established from proceeds of taxation
[1]
Cosmopolitan commerce centers: Timbuktu, Djenne, Biru, Soo, Ndob, Pekes and some others.
[2]
Currency "consisted of salt, cowries, or gold in either dust or pieces (of foreign or local mintage)."
[3]
[1]: (Cissoko 1984, 195) [2]: (Diop 1987, 132-133) Diop, Cheikh Anta. Salemson, Harold trans. 1987. Precolonial Black Africa. Lawrence Hill Books. Chicago. [3]: (Diop 1987, 133) Diop, Cheikh Anta. Salemson, Harold trans. 1987. Precolonial Black Africa. Lawrence Hill Books. Chicago. |
||||||
|
Cosmopolitan commerce centers: Timbuktu, Djenne, Biru, Soo, Ndob, Pekes and some others.
[1]
Currency "consisted of salt, cowries, or gold in either dust or pieces (of foreign or local mintage)."
[2]
[1]: (Diop 1987, 132-133) Diop, Cheikh Anta. Salemson, Harold trans. 1987. Precolonial Black Africa. Lawrence Hill Books. Chicago. [2]: (Diop 1987, 133) Diop, Cheikh Anta. Salemson, Harold trans. 1987. Precolonial Black Africa. Lawrence Hill Books. Chicago. |
||||||
|
Sources do not suggest that monetary items have been found dating to this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
||||||
|
Sources do not suggest that monetary items have been found dating to this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
||||||
|
Sources do not suggest that monetary items have been found dating to this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
||||||
|
Sources do not suggest that monetary items have been found dating to this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
||||||
|
Monetary items have not been found dating to this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
||||||
|
Raw or manufatured prestige goods -- ceramics, precious stone, feathers, textiles, jewelry, ornaments, etc. (both "articles" like jade and feathers, and "tokens" like shells) -- likely functioned as "primitive money" or "social currency."
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[1]: Piña Chan, Román. (1971). "Preclassic or Formative Pottery and Minor Arts of the Valley of Mexico." In The Handbook of Middle American Indians, vol. 10, ed. G. F. Ekholm, and I. Bernal. Austin: University of Texas Press, pp.157-178. [2]: Sanders, William T., Jeffrey R. Parsons, and Robert S. Santley. (1979) The Basin of Mexico: Ecological Processes in the Evolution of a Civilization. Academic Press, New York, pg. 331-3. [3]: Stoner, Wesley D., Deborah L. Nichols, Bridget A. Alex, and Destiny L. Crider. (2015)"The emergence of Early-Middle Formative exchange patterns in Mesoamerica: A view from Altica in the Teotihuacan Valley." Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 39: 19-35. [4]: Charlton, Thomas H. (1984). "Production and Exchange: Variables in the Evolution of a Civilization." In Kenneth G. Hirth (Ed.) Trade and Exchange in Early Mesoamerica. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, pp.17-42. [5]: Hirth, Kenneth G. (1984). "Early Exchange in Mesoamerica: An Introduction." In Kenneth G. Hirth (Ed.) Trade and Exchange in Early Mesoamerica. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, pp.1-16. |
||||||
|
The system closest to coinage ever practiced in Mesoamerica was the widespread use of cacao beans and copper axes as media of exchange during the Postclassic.
[1]
[1]: Berdan, Frances F., Marilyn A. Masson, Janine Gasco, and Michael E. Smith. (2003) "An International Economy." In Michael E. Smith and Frances F. Berdan (eds.) The Postclassic Mesoamerican World. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, pg. 102. |
||||||
|
Raw or manufatured prestige goods -- ceramics, precious stone, feathers, textiles, jewelry, ornaments, etc. (both "articles" like jade and feathers, and "tokens" like shells) -- likely functioned as "primitive money" or "social currency."
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[1]: Piña Chan, Román. (1971). "Preclassic or Formative Pottery and Minor Arts of the Valley of Mexico." In The Handbook of Middle American Indians, vol. 10, ed. G. F. Ekholm, and I. Bernal. Austin: University of Texas Press, pp.157-178. [2]: Sanders, William T., Jeffrey R. Parsons, and Robert S. Santley. (1979) The Basin of Mexico: Ecological Processes in the Evolution of a Civilization. Academic Press, New York, pg. 331-3. [3]: Stoner, Wesley D., Deborah L. Nichols, Bridget A. Alex, and Destiny L. Crider. (2015)"The emergence of Early-Middle Formative exchange patterns in Mesoamerica: A view from Altica in the Teotihuacan Valley." Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 39: 19-35. [4]: Charlton, Thomas H. (1984). "Production and Exchange: Variables in the Evolution of a Civilization." In Kenneth G. Hirth (Ed.) Trade and Exchange in Early Mesoamerica. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, pp.17-42. [5]: Hirth, Kenneth G. (1984). "Early Exchange in Mesoamerica: An Introduction." In Kenneth G. Hirth (Ed.) Trade and Exchange in Early Mesoamerica. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, pp.1-16. |
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Although exchange of goods will have taken place, sources do not suggest that specific monetary items have been found dating to this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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|
Although exchange of goods will have taken place, sources do not suggest that specific monetary items have been found dating to this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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"No single currency was in general use. Buhaya used cowrie shells, Ujiji employed special beads, and Pare utilised maize cobs, but none had a fixed value elsewhere."
[1]
[1]: (Iliffe 1979: 68) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SB2AJMVC/collection. |
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According to Alan Covey: "No evidence of money. I don’t know how one would document “markets”—in the exchange sense or the spatial sense? There is not enough evidence to evaluate exchange systems in the Cuzco region before Inca times, and the study of Inca exchange is steeped in substantivist/Marxian ideology that downplays exchange."
[1]
[1]: (Alan Covey 2015, personal communication) |
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According to Alan Covey: "No evidence of money. I don’t know how one would document “markets”—in the exchange sense or the spatial sense? There is not enough evidence to evaluate exchange systems in the Cuzco region before Inca times, and the study of Inca exchange is steeped in substantivist/Marxian ideology that downplays exchange."
[1]
[1]: (Alan Covey 2015, personal communication) |
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According to Alan Covey: "No evidence of money. I don’t know how one would document “markets”—in the exchange sense or the spatial sense? There is not enough evidence to evaluate exchange systems in the Cuzco region before Inca times, and the study of Inca exchange is steeped in substantivist/Marxian ideology that downplays exchange."
[1]
[1]: (Alan Covey 2015, personal communication) |
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According to Alan Covey: "No evidence of money. I don’t know how one would document “markets”—in the exchange sense or the spatial sense? There is not enough evidence to evaluate exchange systems in the Cuzco region before Inca times, and the study of Inca exchange is steeped in substantivist/Marxian ideology that downplays exchange."
[1]
[1]: (Alan Covey 2015, personal communication) |
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"Another important difference lay in the long-time presence of special-purpose money and more sophisticated weights and measures than those found in the central Andean highlands. It is not clear how widely the currencies were used in prehistory. There is no evidence, for example, that land or labor could be purchased until the Colonial era (Hosler et al. 1990; Salomon 1986; 1987; Netherly 1978). The Incas themselves did not adopt the currencies for the state economy, although they used large amounts of the shell and gold for political and ceremonial ends. Instead, they either left things alone or manipulated the situation politically to give favored groups an advantage."
[1]
[1]: (D’Altroy 2014, 320) |
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According to SCCS variable 17 ’Money (Media of Exchange) and Credit’, ‘1’ or ’No media of exchange or money’ was present, not ’Domestically used articles as media of exchange’ or ’Tokens of conventional value as media of exchange’ or ’Foreign coinage or paper coinage’, or ’Indigenous coinage or paper currency’. Monetary exchange was introduced by the colonial powers.
|
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According to SCCS variable 17 ’Money (Media of Exchange) and Credit’, ‘1’ or ’No media of exchange or money’ was present, not ’Domestically used articles as media of exchange’ or ’Tokens of conventional value as media of exchange’ or ’Foreign coinage or paper coinage’, or ’Indigenous coinage or paper currency’. Monetary exchange was introduced by the colonial powers: ’By the 1930s many Koropata men had been to gaol for disobeying one or other of the Native Regulations. Tax had been introduced before World War I and the consequent need for money was a powerful impetus for the planting of village cash crops and continued signing on for plantation work. In this decade more Koropatans were recruited to work on Kokoda rubber plantations, thus coming into contact with other Papuans. More of the villagers were becoming familiar with Papuans from other areas. The mission was known only by rumour until 1928 when the Anglicans bought 5 acres at Baravaturu. During the 1930s the more mobile Koropatans became acquainted with a kind of white man whose activities and objectives seemed to differ from those they had previously encountered, the missionary more interested in their beliefs than their labour power (Files 407, Karius in 409, 411; Box 6549, G91).’
[1]
[1]: Newton, Janice 1985. “Orokaiva Production And Change”, 57 |
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The gold dinar was circulating as was the silver coin called a Tanka. Coins of the Delhi Sultans and early Ghaznavids were also being used locally after 1200 CE.
[1]
[1]: Maclean, Derryl N. Religion and society in Arab Sind. Brill, 1989. pp.68-70; Panhwar, M.H, An illustrated Historical Atlas of Soomra Kingdom of the Sindh p. 135 |
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coded present for previous period.
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"The coin bulk came from different centers and trade routes. The coins found on the territory of the Kingdom were of various denominations struck after several standards: Phokean (the cyzikeni), Attic (tetradrachms of Athens), light Thracian-Macedonian (staters and drachms of the Thasos-type and ¼ drachms of Thasos), Chian-Rhodian (drachms of Parion and of Apollonia Pontica) and the local standard (the Odrysian royal issues and the Thasos-type bronzes)...”
[1]
[1]: Dimitrov, K. (2011) Economic, Social and Political Structures on the Territory of the Odrysian Kingdom in Thrace (5th - first half of the 3rd century BC). ORPHEUS. Journal of IndoEuropean and Thracian Studies. 18, p. 4-24. p7 |
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[1]
Unified currency from 17th century.
[2]
Venetian and other European coins also circulate in the Ottoman Empire.
[3]
[1]: (Pamuk 2000, 62) [2]: (Lapidus 2012, 473) [3]: Personal communication. Johannes Preiser-Kapeller. 2016. Institute for Medieval Research. Division of Byzantine Research. Austrian Academy of Sciences. |
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e.g. coins acquired through booty and tribute.
[1]
When they were a tribal people the Turks and the Seljuks would have accumulated coins through tribute and booty. As they settled down they began to mint their own coins under Sultan Masud I. These early coins were of copper and used in commerce. Silver began to be used under Kilic Arslan II, followed by gold in the 1200s.
[2]
[1]: Cahen, Claude. The Formation of Turkey: The Seljukid Sultanate of Rūm: Eleventh to Fourteenth Century. Translated by P. M. Holt. A History of the Near East. Harlow, England: Longman, 2001, Pp.95-96. [2]: Cahen, Claude. The Formation of Turkey: The Seljukid Sultanate of Rūm: Eleventh to Fourteenth Century. Translated by P. M. Holt. A History of the Near East. Harlow, England: Longman, 2001, p.97 |
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Central Asia was "the major center of banking and finance for trade between China, India, and the Middle East."
[1]
coded present for the Abbasid Caliphate.
[1]: (Starr 2013) Starr, S. Frederick. 2013. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton University Press. Princeton. |
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" The coinage of Samarkand also underwent an Iranian influence, due to the prevalence of coins paid by Pèròz after his defeat by the Hephtalites as well as imitations of drachms, and was further influenced in the 7th century by the Bukhar Khuda coins49 as well as those of Chinese type with a central hole."
[1]
"Sasanian silver coins were in use."
[2]
[1]: (De la Vaissière 2005, 172) [2]: (Preiser-Kapeller, Johannes. Personal Communication with Jill Levine, Peter Turchin, and Dan Hoyer. April 2020. Email) |
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The gold coins were foreign ‘That foreign coins are being referred to is clear, but whether they were Venetian ducats which had been in circulation in trade until the Mamluk coinage reform of 830/1425, ^ or coins from the pre-Islamic era cannot be known.’
[1]
[1]: Porter, Venetia Ann (1992) The history and monuments of the Tahirid dynasty of the Yemen 858-923/1454-1517, Durham theses, Durham University, p. 160, Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5867/ |
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"As we have seen, to secure their essential ties, the ancient states, lacking writing and money, relied on kinship, trust, and personal relationships, which were periodically rekindled by direct contact and exchanged words."
[1]
[1]: (Chrétien 2006: 178) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/FXCVWDRI/collection. |
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Coins were used by Europeans, but due to shortage even Europeans often resorted to payment in articles. "European presence in the coastal regions of Sierra Leone led to an inland spread of stores that used cash as well as goods in exchanges, alongside an increase in Krio brokers who were responsible for bringing European manufactures to villages. Knives, kettles, chests and jars, as well as rum, tobacco, brandy, gunpowder and brass rods were brought to the interior in this way and generally exchanged for local produce. Other forms of monetary transaction were used in the payment of stipends to local chiefs, in the salaries of the military as well as payments for local services, such as repairs, for dashes (gratuities), at government stores and at the markets. [...] Because of their location the coastal towns of Sierra Leone acted as interfaces where international currencies could be found to circulate. After the abolition of the slave trade, Cuban and Brazilian traders struggled to obtain European manufactures for carrying out local exchange. To make their local payments along the west coast of Africa, they brought with them coins, silver dollars and then gold doubloons. Thus, from the turn of the century, to the ‘mosaic of currencies’, which included the Sierra Leone Company coinage and the iron bars system, could be added silver Spanish dollars, Mexican dollars, French five-franc pieces and Maria Theresa thalers as well as gold Spanish American doubloons (or ‘pieces of eight’), American five-dollar and French twenty-franc pieces. By the 1820s, however relatively small in amounts, the Spanish dollar had become the principal foreign currency across the coastal region."
[1]
[1]: (Mew 2016: 199-201) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/U3D2FQIH/collection. |
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"Because of their location the coastal towns of Sierra Leone acted as interfaces where international currencies could be found to circulate. After the abolition of the slave trade, Cuban and Brazilian traders struggled to obtain European manufactures for carrying out local exchange. To make their local payments along the west coast of Africa, they brought with them coins, silver dollars and then gold doubloons. Thus, from the turn of the century, to the ‘mosaic of currencies’, which included the Sierra Leone Company coinage and the iron bars system, could be added silver Spanish dollars, Mexican dollars, French five-franc pieces and Maria Theresa thalers as well as gold Spanish American doubloons (or ‘pieces of eight’), American five-dollar and French twenty-franc pieces. By the 1820s, however relatively small in amounts, the Spanish dollar had become the principal foreign currency across the coastal region."
[1]
[1]: (Mew 2016: 199-201) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/U3D2FQIH/collection. |
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At least one coin of Arabian origin has been discovered at the site, suggesting that while it may not have been common, there were at least some foreign coins present within the body of inhabitants. “…the next major excavation [at the site after the moratorium on excavations] was that of Thomas Huffman who, in the early 1970s, rescue-excavated the flats near the Camp Ruin…. The excavation recovered local pottery, glass beads, a coin with Arabic inscriptions, tin ingots, as well as an assortment of metalwork.”
[1]
[1]: (Chirikure 2021, 67) Shadreck Chirikure, Great Zimbabwe: Reclaiming a ‘Confiscated’ Past (Routledge, 2021). Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/MWWKAGSJ/collection |
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“Finally, between the middle of the fifth and the middle of the sixth centuries, Lanka’s role in networks of connectivity seems to have shifted. The finds of Roman copper-alloy coins, probably arriving from India, and their imitation on the island, may suggest either growing monetization or growing interest in Western aspects of commercial or material culture (or both), and in the sixth century, at around the time that finds of Byzantine coins in South India cease, the Christian Topography gives a graphic but unique account of an island poised between two networks: the eastern and western Indian Ocean regions. The few finds of Byzantine and Sasanian coins documented from the island give some sup- port to this picture, although also serve as a reminder of how ephemeral these networks probably still were in comparison to local exchange within the island and with the nearby coast of India. It is difficult to assess what may have caused this change, and the tendency where it has been identified to attribute it to political changes in the Mediterranean world or to changes in Byzantine and Sasanian demand seems to derive more from the persistent narrative structures highlighted throughout this chapter than from the surviving historical evidence.
[1]
“A third type of property, mercantile wealth, made its appearance increasingly felt during the first seven centuries AD, which saw the expansion of foreign trade and an increase in the use of coins. The presence of mercantile wealth would mean that while retaining the concept of the ‘consumer city’ we have to modify Sombart’s model: in addition to Rechtstitel, exchange did, to some extent, come into play as one of the mechanisms which ensured the supply of consumer needs within the city”.
[2]
[1]: (Frasch 2017, 63) Frasch, Tilman. 2017. ‘A Palii cosmopolis? Sri Lanka and the Theravada Buddhist ecumene, c. 500–1500’. Sri Lanka at the Crossroads of History. London: UCL Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/JQMKSIWF/collection [2]: (Gunawardana 1989, 167). Gunawardana, R.A.L.H. 1989. ‘Anurādhapura: ritual, power and resistance in a precolonial South Asian city’. Domination and Resistance edited by Daniel Miller, Michael Rowlands, Chris Tilley. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/G8CWKJ2U/collection |
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Implied by the following quote. "The country inherited the monetary system from the Burgundy–Habsburg administration in the Low Countries. The national parliament attempted to regulate the money circulation by supervising the minting of coins, by deciding which foreign coins were admitted in the country and by setting the rate at which the coins would circulate."
[1]
[1]: (Wolters 2008: 39) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/UT69DCSD/collection. |
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“The Maria Theresa dollar, known as the thaler in Austria, was first minted in Vienna in 1751 and named after the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. It was 80 percent pure silver. In the late 18th century, Arab traders probably introduced the Maria Theresa thaler to Ethiopia and, by the mid-19th century it had become the most widely acceptable form of currency. Before 1935, the coinage of Menelik II and Halie Selassie failed to dislodge the thaler. During the Italian-Ethiopian War (1935-1936), there were some 50 million thalers in circulation.
[1]
“In 1928, the tribute of Jimma amounted to Maria Theresa Thalers (MT) 87,000 and an additional MT 15,000 for the Army.”
[2]
[1]: (Shinn and Ofcansky 2013, 110) Shinn, David and Thomas Ofcansky. 2013. Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/TWITJWK4/items/29MS79PA/collection [2]: (Mekonnen 2013, 303) Mekonnen, Yohannes K. 2013. Ethiopia: The Land, Its People, History and Culture. New Africa Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QQ9ZECMI/collection |
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“The Maria Theresa dollar, known as the thaler in Austria, was first minted in Vienna in 1751 and named after the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. It was 80 percent pure silver. In the late 18th century, Arab traders probably introduced the Maria Theresa thaler to Ethiopia and, by the mid-19th century it had become the most widely acceptable form of currency. Before 1935, the coinage of Menelik II and Halie Selassie failed to dislodge the thaler. During the Italian-Ethiopian War (1935-1936), there were some 50 million thalers in circulation.
[1]
[1]: (Shinn and Ofcansky 2013, 110) Shinn, David and Thomas Ofcansky. 2013. Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/TWITJWK4/items/29MS79PA/collection |
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“The ruins of Warq Amba, in Argobba, which undoubtedly witnessed the bitter struggles of Sayfa’Ar’ad and the princes we have just named against the Muslims of the southwest, lie a good day’s walk from Tschanno, to the right of the Awadi River; the debris of ancient buildings, with a necropolis, a mosque, a large reservoir for water, stretching for a length of almost two kilometres. Mr. Traversi, who discovered this ancient unknown dead city, saw there in the cemetery, the inscription of a sultan Ali, contemporary of Sayfa’Ar’ad; near the town in an antique vase shape, he found a small treasure of silver coins, but minted by Egyptian Sultans of the 13th and 14th centuries.”
[1]
[1]: (Fauvelle et al. 2017, 239-295) Fauvelle, François-Xavier et al. 2007. “The Sultanate of Awfāt, its Capital and the Necropolis of the Walasma”, Annales Islamologiques. Vol. 51. Pp 239-295. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/HJCMAMX7/library |
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When shipwrecks happened in the Sultanate’s waters, local Marjeerteen chiefs would ask for a salvage fee. “After a few days exploring the area, a local chief from the port of Alula met the survivors at their camp. The chief requested eight hundred British Rupees (about £6,000 in today’s money) as a payment of tribute and agreed to sail the survivors to Aden. The crew accepted the chief’s offer.”
[1]
[1]: (Smith 2021, 77) Smith, Nicholas W.S. 2021. Colonial Chaos in the Southern Red Sea: A History of Violence from 1830 to the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/TWITJWK4/items/K6HVJ7X4/collection |
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The following quote suggests that foreign coins were used in the market of Sinnar and the harbour of Suakin before the seventeenth century. “While Funj still knew no (official) coins or currencies in the early seventeenth century beyond the market of Sinnar and the harbour of Suakin, with the exception of gold in form of gold dust or braclets, (Spanish) silver coins (from American mines) increasingly entered the empire in the seventeenth century. This led to an accelerated export of gold and the establishment of silver coins in regional and even local markets in the eighteenth century, when silver replaced textiles and salt as currencies of exchange. This led to an even stronger import of small silver coins and the development of an imperial mint. In the late eighteenth century, the Spanish silver peso had become the major currency.”
[1]
[1]: (Loimeier 2013, 148) Loimeier, Roman. 2013. Muslim Societies in Africa: A Historical Anthropology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/HJTAUHA9/collection |
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“The Maria Theresa dollar, known as the thaler in Austria, was first minted in Vienna in 1751 and named after the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. It was 80 percent pure silver. In the late 18th century, Arab traders probably introduced the Maria Theresa thaler to Ethiopia and, by the mid-19th century it had become the most widely acceptable form of currency. Before 1935, the coinage of Menelik II and Halie Selassie failed to dislodge the thaler. During the Italian-Ethiopian War (1935-1936), there were some 50 million thalers in circulation.
[1]
[1]: (Shinn and Ofcansky 2013, 110) Shinn, David and Thomas Ofcansky. 2013. Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/TWITJWK4/items/29MS79PA/collection |
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|
“The Maria Theresa dollar, known as the thaler in Austria, was first minted in Vienna in 1751 and named after the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. It was 80 percent pure silver. In the late 18th century, Arab traders probably introduced the Maria Theresa thaler to Ethiopia and, by the mid-19th century it had become the most widely acceptable form of currency. Before 1935, the coinage of Menelik II and Halie Selassie failed to dislodge the thaler. During the Italian-Ethiopian War (1935-1936), there were some 50 million thalers in circulation.
[1]
[1]: (Shinn and Ofcansky 2013, 110) Shinn, David and Thomas Ofcansky. 2013. Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/TWITJWK4/items/29MS79PA/collection |
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|
“The Maria Theresa dollar, known as the thaler in Austria, was first minted in Vienna in 1751 and named after the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. It was 80 percent pure silver. In the late 18th century, Arab traders probably introduced the Maria Theresa thaler to Ethiopia and, by the mid-19th century it had become the most widely acceptable form of currency. Before 1935, the coinage of Menelik II and Halie Selassie failed to dislodge the thaler. During the Italian-Ethiopian War (1935-1936), there were some 50 million thalers in circulation.
[1]
[1]: (Shinn and Ofcansky 2013, 110) Shinn, David and Thomas Ofcansky. 2013. Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/TWITJWK4/items/29MS79PA/collection |
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“Maria Theresa dollars could have served as a high denomination currency, and to some extent they did, but they were in short supply. Though they had had a presence in the Caliphate since at least the start of the nineteenth century, they were scarce, and often those that did circulate were melted down as a source of silver jewelry.”
[1]
[1]: Stiansen, Endre, and Jane I. Guyer, editors. Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective. Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1999: 66. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/A9F557EW/collection |
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"As we have seen, to secure their essential ties, the ancient states, lacking writing and money, relied on kinship, trust, and personal relationships, which were periodically rekindled by direct contact and exchanged words."
[1]
[1]: (Chrétien 2006: 178) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/FXCVWDRI/collection. |
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Maria Theresa dollar: “In Bornu, where cowries were introduced in the middle of the nineteenth century along with the Maria Theresa dollar, a different system of counting was in use. The unit of count was the rotl, an Arabic word meaning a pound weight; this unit is believed to have belonged to the copper coinage which was minted in Bornu in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The cowrie rotl consisted of 32 cowries, or four gabaga of eight cowries each (the gabaga was the local traditional currency unit, a strip of cloth, which had replaced the copper coinage in the nineteenth century). According to various writers, the 32-cowrie rotl had a nominal value of 33, the odd cowrie being set aside to help in the counting, as a sort of tally, or as a discount for the trouble of counting. Three rotl would thus make an approximate hundred. This looks very like an attempt to bring a system inherited from currency units which could be physically divided into halves and quarters into relation with the cowrie systems in use on the lower Niger, where strings of 66 and 100 were known. The relation between the rotl and the Maria Theresa dollar was never fixed; in Barth’s time it was subject to manipulation by powerful speculators, and ranged between 45 and 100 rotl to the dollar. Nachtigal put it at 120-130 to the dollar, and Monteil in the I890s at 135-160. The actual counting of cowries in Bornu was done in groups of four, not in fives as elsewhere in northern West Africa; it is probable that this method of counting goes back to the small copper coins of Bornu.”
[1]
[1]: Johnson, M. (1970). The Cowrie Currencies of West Africa. Part I. The Journal of African History, 11(1), 17–49: 42. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/XZMB8INB/collection |
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"As we have noted, pre-colonial Buganda never developed a purely monetary economy, and even during the later nineteenth century barter was an important method of exchange, existing alongside a cowry currency. Nevertheless, the information we have on nineteenth-century prices suggests that virtually everything had at least a nominal cowry value. Moreover, other currencies existed alongside cowries, and some undoubtedly pre-dated the latter. Roscoe mentions a "small ivory disc" which he terms ’sanga’, ssanga being the Luganda term for either a tusk or ivory in general. This, Roscoe claimed, was one of the earliest forms of money in Buganda; although clearly indigenous and probably much older than the cowry shell, it also had a cowry value. One disc was apparently worth one hundred shells. Ivory played a dual role insofar as it was on the one hand a commodity valued for its own sake, and on the other a standard medium of exchange. The former role gradually took precedence over the latter, as demand for ivory from the coast increased, so that as the nineteenth century progressed, ivory as money all but disappeared. [...] A third pre-cowry currency has already been mentioned, namely the blue bead, and as we have also already noted, examples of beads have been excavated at Ntusi. From such archaeological evidence, it is possible to suggest that beads may be the oldest currency in the region."
[1]
[1]: (Reid 2010: 126-127) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/2H64W34U/collection. |
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|
"As we have seen, to secure their essential ties, the ancient states, lacking writing and money, relied on kinship, trust, and personal relationships, which were periodically rekindled by direct contact and exchanged words."
[1]
[1]: (Chrétien 2006: 178) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/FXCVWDRI/collection. |
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"As we have noted, pre-colonial Buganda never developed a purely monetary economy, and even during the later nineteenth century barter was an important method of exchange, existing alongside a cowry currency. Nevertheless, the information we have on nineteenth-century prices suggests that virtually everything had at least a nominal cowry value. Moreover, other currencies existed alongside cowries, and some undoubtedly pre-dated the latter. Roscoe mentions a "small ivory disc" which he terms ’sanga’, ssanga being the Luganda term for either a tusk or ivory in general. This, Roscoe claimed, was one of the earliest forms of money in Buganda; although clearly indigenous and probably much older than the cowry shell, it also had a cowry value. One disc was apparently worth one hundred shells. Ivory played a dual role insofar as it was on the one hand a commodity valued for its own sake, and on the other a standard medium of exchange. The former role gradually took precedence over the latter, as demand for ivory from the coast increased, so that as the nineteenth century progressed, ivory as money all but disappeared. [...] A third pre-cowry currency has already been mentioned, namely the blue bead, and as we have also already noted, examples of beads have been excavated at Ntusi. From such archaeological evidence, it is possible to suggest that beads may be the oldest currency in the region."
[1]
[1]: (Reid 2010: 126-127) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/2H64W34U/collection. |
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"As we have seen, to secure their essential ties, the ancient states, lacking writing and money, relied on kinship, trust, and personal relationships, which were periodically rekindled by direct contact and exchanged words."
[1]
[1]: (Chrétien 2006: 178) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/FXCVWDRI/collection. |
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"As we have seen, to secure their essential ties, the ancient states, lacking writing and money, relied on kinship, trust, and personal relationships, which were periodically rekindled by direct contact and exchanged words."
[1]
[1]: (Chrétien 2006: 178) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/FXCVWDRI/collection. |
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"As we have seen, to secure their essential ties, the ancient states, lacking writing and money, relied on kinship, trust, and personal relationships, which were periodically rekindled by direct contact and exchanged words."
[1]
[1]: (Chrétien 2006: 178) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/FXCVWDRI/collection. |
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"As we have seen, to secure their essential ties, the ancient states, lacking writing and money, relied on kinship, trust, and personal relationships, which were periodically rekindled by direct contact and exchanged words."
[1]
[1]: (Chrétien 2006: 178) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/FXCVWDRI/collection. |
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"As we have seen, to secure their essential ties, the ancient states, lacking writing and money, relied on kinship, trust, and personal relationships, which were periodically rekindled by direct contact and exchanged words."
[1]
[1]: (Chrétien 2006: 178) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/FXCVWDRI/collection. |
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“In regions included in the ancient Chera, Pandya, and Chola Kingdoms have been found large numbers of Roman coins struck chiefly by emperors down to Nero […]”
[1]
[1]: (Warmington 1928, 63) Warmington, E.H. 1928. The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/SJB2W6BB/collection |
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“In regions included in the ancient Chera, Pandya, and Chola Kingdoms have been found large numbers of Roman coins struck chiefly by emperors down to Nero […]”
[1]
[1]: (Warmington 1928, 63) Warmington, E.H. 1928. The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/SJB2W6BB/collection |
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“Between 1659-1660 and 1689-1690, silver bullion was sold by the Dutch at their local factories from prices ranging from 83.25 and 94 Madurai fanams per mark (1 mark = ca. 243.5 grams), while gold bullion fetched 1, 200 to 1, 330 fanams per mark. The so-called Dutch negotiepenningen or ‘commercial coins’ such as silver leeuwendaalders, rijksdaalders, bankdaalders, and ducatons were sold for 8.62 fanams (leeuwendaalders) to 11.5-11.75 fanams (ducatons).”
[1]
[1]: (Vink 2015, 180) Vink, Markus. 2015. Encounters on the Opposite Coast: The Dutch East India Company and the Nayaka State of Madurai in the Seventeenth Century. Leiden: Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/9U7MCK4E/collection |
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"First, prior to the arrival of the first wave of [colonial] settlers [to Freetown in 1787] there existed no centralised currency system that resembled, for example, the gold dust of the Asante Kingdom (where the use of cowries was forbidden). Cowries were not generally much in use in the coastal and hinterland regions of Sierra Leone, and this led to acute problems in introducing coins that were of small enough denominations for local market transactions (in turn leading to problems with cut dollars in 1818)."
[1]
[1]: (Mew 2016: 199( Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/U3D2FQIH/collection. |
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Sources note major trading and political relationships between Mutapa and the Portuguese, and these would produce at least some presence of Portuguese goods and currency within the Mutapa territory, most likely. “…the Portuguese invaded the Mutapa state with 1,000 soldiers under Francisco Barreto in 1568 in support of a rival claimant to the throne, Mamvura, who was then prevailed upon to sign treaties accepting vassalage to the Portuguese. Meanwhile, despite these upheavals, the Mutapa state continued to thrive and became the hub in the interior for trade with the Indian Ocean in silk, ceramics, silver, and glassware, among other imports, in exchange for gold, ivory, skins and local cloth known as Machira, woven from local cotton. The Portuguese maintained their presence in the state, benefitting from working with several puppet Mutapas and maintaining vibrant trading stations at Dambarare, Luanze, Massapa and other places.”
[1]
[1]: (Mlambo 2014, 22-23) Alois Mlambo, A History of Zimbabwe (New York, Cambridge University Press: 2014). Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/IMR6WQ6M/item-details |
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The following quote suggest that the Maria Theresa thaler was likely present within the Kingdom of Kaffa. “The Maria Theresa dollar, known as the thaler in Austria, was first minted in Vienna in 1751 and named after the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. It was 80 percent pure silver. In the late 18th century, Arab traders probably introduced the Maria Theresa thaler to Ethiopia and, by the mid-19th century it had become the most widely acceptable form of currency. Before 1935, the coinage of Menelik II and Halie Selassie failed to dislodge the thaler. During the Italian-Ethiopian War (1935-1936), there were some 50 million thalers in circulation.
[1]
[1]: (Shinn and Ofcansky 2013, 110) Shinn, David and Thomas Ofcansky. 2013. Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/TWITJWK4/items/29MS79PA/collection |
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As per Innocent (referenced below), it seems unlikely there was indigenous currency. However, Chuku refers to cash as a result of trading in the Niger Delta, so it’s possible foreign currency was sometimes used, at least in the mid- to late-19th century: “the beginning of kernel export in the 1870s presented the Igbo and Ibibio women with an unprecedented opportunity to earn cash”.
[1]
[1]: Chuku, G. (2004). Igbo Women and Economic Transformation in Southeastern Nigeria, 1900-1960. Routledge: 54.https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/PA65FGCE/collection |
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The following quote suggests that French coins were present in the Kingdom of Baol. “French commercial houses became so important to the Gambian trade that as early as 1843 the, French five-franc piece, called the ‘dollar’ or the ‘gourde’ was recognized as legal tender in the Gambia.”
[1]
The following quote suggests that this was likely true beginning in the Early Modern period: “All three capitals: Kahone, Diakhao, and Lambaye, were established in the mid-sixteenth century when the fertile coastal provinces of the Empire of Jolof- an inland empire established in the thirteenth century-gained independence […] They prospered as independent kingdoms during the mercantilist era and, together, constituted the ‘Peanut Basin’ that developed during the colonial era. They maintained trade relations with the European and Eura-african merchants who frequented their port cities, and diplomatic relations with the Dutch, French and English/British chartered companies that claimed to monopolize trade along their coasts.”
[2]
[1]: (Klein 2009, 912) Klein, Martin. 2009. ‘Slaves, Gum, and Peanuts: Adaptation to the End of the Slave Trade in Senegal, 1817-48.’ In The William and Mary Quarterly. Vol. 66:4 Pp. 895-914. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZVA4XV6B/collection [2]: (Bigon and Ross 2020, 42) Bigon, Liora and Ross, Eric. 2020. Grid Planning in the Urban Design Practices of Senegal. London: Springer. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/MM67I638/collection |
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"Initially, therefore, a North African coinage standard would have been established in the gold trade. But few gold coins penetrated south of the Sahara; they did not form the ordinary currency, and weights for coins were little used in the Sahel towns."
[1]
[1]: (Garrard 1982: 455) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/IVG2H488/collection. |
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"First, prior to the arrival of the first wave of [colonial] settlers [to Freetown in 1787] there existed no centralised currency system that resembled, for example, the gold dust of the Asante Kingdom (where the use of cowries was forbidden). Cowries were not generally much in use in the coastal and hinterland regions of Sierra Leone, and this led to acute problems in introducing coins that were of small enough denominations for local market transactions (in turn leading to problems with cut dollars in 1818)."
[1]
[1]: (Mew 2016: 199( Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/U3D2FQIH/collection. |
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The following suggests not only that cattle were no longer used as articles of exchange, but also the existence of system of exchange based on labor rather than physical currency. "By the middle of Red II this material symbol of inequality, cattle, ceased to be commonly kept, despite the emergence of a drier environment more suitable for animal husbandry in the second millennium A.D. Historically, cattle served as social capital in many non-centralized Voltaic societies, enabling marriages and funerary celebrations, and representing wealth. Consequently, the rejection of cattle, in addition to limiting the accumulation of wealth, may also indicate the beginning of matrimonial compensation in agricultural labor, typical of modern autonomous village societies."
[1]
[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 30) |
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The following suggests not only that cattle were no longer used as articles of exchange, but also the existence of system of exchange based on labor rather than physical currency. "By the middle of Red II this material symbol of inequality, cattle, ceased to be commonly kept, despite the emergence of a drier environment more suitable for animal husbandry in the second millennium A.D. Historically, cattle served as social capital in many non-centralized Voltaic societies, enabling marriages and funerary celebrations, and representing wealth. Consequently, the rejection of cattle, in addition to limiting the accumulation of wealth, may also indicate the beginning of matrimonial compensation in agricultural labor, typical of modern autonomous village societies."
[1]
[1]: (Dueppen 2012: 30) |
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The following suggests that strings, "standard measurements of beads" and possibly glass beads were used as "money". "Given their quality as a high-value and low-bulk commodity, long-distance travelers likely carried Ifè glass beads across the Yorùbá world and the adjacent areas as a means of payment for provisions on their journeys. The durability and affective qualities of these dichroic beads, especially the most common sègi, and the guarantee of their supply and demand encouraged people to use them as a means of high-value exchange and for storing wealth. We are short of evidence on whether glass beads evolved to serve as a standard currency, especially as a means of pricing. However, strings and other standard measurements of beads were likely used for purchasing high-value products and services."
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020: 107-108) |
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The following quote suggests that the main form of currency was cowrie shells. “The reign of Oba Esigie witnessed the increasing monetisation of the enclave economy (cowries), and provided the opportunity for the development of "institutionalized mechanisms of exploitation" (Belasco 1980, 81-82). The palace control of cowries and the elite domination of commercial development in the administrative and economic enclaves provided the final element in the emergence of the dual economy. The capital and commercial centres had developed highly sophisticated and well-organised monetary exchange systems. However, the vassal villages in the empire remained relatively static, with little circulation of either commercial consumer goods or currency forms (cowries or manillas).”
[1]
[1]: Sargent, R. A. (1986). From A Redistribution to an Imperial Social Formation: Benin c.1293-1536. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne Des Études Africaines, 20(3), 402–427: 421. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/AUEZSTBR/collection |
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The literature suggests that culturally related and geographically adjacent polities in the Great Lakes region did not use coins as currency: barter was a common form of exchange, as was the use of tokens (e.g. ivory discs, cowrie shells) and articles (e.g. iron objects). In the case of Rwanda: "Neighbors exchanged goods by barter. Hunters, farmers, and herders exchanged game, leather goods, honey, sorghum, beans, milk, and butter, among other things. Iron objects and hoes above all were preferably exchanged for goats and if possible cattle, but sometimes also for the goods we have just enumerated. Indeed, the hoe was probably already the standard of value as it was in the nineteenth century."
[1]
In the case of Buganda: "As we have noted, pre-colonial Buganda never developed a purely monetary economy, and even during the later nineteenth century barter was an important method of exchange, existing alongside a cowry currency. Nevertheless, the information we have on nineteenth-century prices suggests that virtually everything had at least a nominal cowry value. Moreover, other currencies existed alongside cowries, and some undoubtedly pre-dated the latter. Roscoe mentions a "small ivory disc" which he terms ’sanga’, ssanga being the Luganda term for either a tusk or ivory in general. This, Roscoe claimed, was one of the earliest forms of money in Buganda; although clearly indigenous and probably much older than the cowry shell, it also had a cowry value. [...] A third pre-cowry currency has already been mentioned, namely the blue bead, and as we have also already noted, examples of beads have been excavated at Ntusi. From such archaeological evidence, it is possible to suggest that beads may be the oldest currency in the region."
[2]
[1]: (Vansina 2004: 30) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [2]: (Reid 2010: 122, 126-127) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/2H64W34U/collection. |
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There was no currency but trade was based on an exchange system with their neighbours and other peoples who lived on the coast of North America.
[1]
[1]: “The Ancestral Sonoran Desert People - Casa Grande Ruins National Monument (U.S. National Park Service),”. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/HZ95455H |
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During the thirteenth century there was a substantial amount of low-quality coins imported from the Low Countries in circulation which often contained half the silver of an English coin. By spring of 1300 they had been demonetised. Bullion also circulated from the continent, as well as other foreign coins throughout the period.
[1]
[1]: (Prestwich 2005: 177) Prestwich, Michael. 2005. Plantagenet England 1225-1360. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XTBKFDCI |
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There were coins from the various countries in the empire, including the Netherlands (Guilders), Spain, Italy, Austria and Germany.
[1]
[1]: (Hillgärtner 2021: 82) Hillgärtner, Jan. 2021. ‘Newspapers and Authorities in Seventeenth-Century Germany’, in Print and Power in Early Modern Europe (1500–1800), ed. Nina Lamal, Jamie Cumby, and Helmer J. Helmers. Brill. 134–47, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctv1v7zbf2.11. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/57ZGSTKK |
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Roman coins may have been used. “Similarly, since the Huns minted no coins, it might reasonably be expected that the numismatic evidence would be slight. This is indeed the case, but from the distribution of Roman coins found in some of the territories once ruled by the nomads it does seem possible to draw one or two inferences.”
[1]
“In addition, the annual tribute paid to the Huns under the treaty of 435 was to be trebled, and Attila was now to receive 2,100 lb of gold per annum. Further, every Roman prisoner who escaped from the Huns was to be ransomed at 12 solidi a head in place of the 8 solidi stipulated in 435.“
[2]
“
[1]: (Thompson 2004: 9) Thompson, E.A. 1996. The Huns. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/49W8PAAS [2]: (Thompson 2004: 94) Thompson, E.A. 1996. The Huns. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/49W8PAAS |
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“Charles was also king of Scotland and of Ireland. The Scottish coinage dated from David I’s reign in the early 12th cent. But the number of coins struck was small, there were mints only at Edinburgh, Berwick, and Roxburgh, and what circulation there was came from England. The Scottish coinage had much in common with the English, partly through direct imitation, partly because each copied continental, and especially French, designs. But Scottish coins had their own peculiarities. Their international standing was undermined in the 15th and 16th cents. by persistent debasement. In 1423 the English government forbade the circulation of Scottish coins and at the union of the crowns in 1603 the Scottish pound was fixed at only one-twelfth that of the English. The falling value of the Scottish currency derived in part from the practice of mixing silver with alloy to produce the base metal billon. One result was that Scotland had less trouble about small change than England. James I introduced a billon penny and halfpenny: James III followed with a billon plack (from French plaque) valued at first at threepence and later at sixpence, a half-plack, and a copper farthing (1466); in James V’s reign the bawbee (1½d.) and half-bawbee were issued, and in Mary’s the hardhead was issued to help ‘the common people’ buy bread, drink, flesh, and fish. The billon coinage was discontinued after 1603, but twopence pieces in copper called hardheads, bodles, or turners continued to be issued until the Act of Union.”
[1]
[1]: (Cannon and Crowcroft 2015: 1017) Cannon, John and Crowcroft, Robert. 2015. The Oxford Companion to British History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/2PEE2ZJ5 |
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Regions which had been conquered by the Mongol forces often had their own coins, such as Russian rubles.
[1]
However, by 1310 the minting of silver coins from Mokhshi only created a closed system and coins from foreign states were not permitted.
[2]
[1]: Halperin 1987: 76. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/VCPWVNM. [2]: Khakimov and Favereau 2017: 623. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/QL8H3FN8 |
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Foreign coins often entered Russia through extensive trade networks. Russia’s trade with European countries, as well as with Asian nations, would have brought various foreign currencies into circulation within its borders.
[1]
[1]: Иван Георгиевич Спасский, Русская Монетная Система: Историко-Нумизматический Очерк (Аврора, 1970). Zotero link: EVFABBP4 |
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Territories across the empire had their own currency, e.g. Rupees in India. "Before the early nineteenth century the Royal Mint’s role was largely domestic. Britain’s North American colonies had gained the right to issue their own coinage ... while in South Asia the East India Company had been allowed since the late seventeeth century to ’purchase’ permission from local Indian rulers to reproduce coins that followed India as opposed to English conventions."
[1]
"domestic British coin became increasingly an ’imperial currency’, circulating throughout much of the Empire. ... in the course of the nineteeth century, the Mint began producing a variety of dedicated colonial as well as other foreign coinages, designated ’private’ by the Mint, and paid for by the overseas customers. From 1883 the Treasury encouraged all colonies to obtain their local currencies from the Mint."
[2]
[1]: (Stockwell 2018, 45-46) Sarah Stockwell. 2018. The British End of the British Empire. Cambridge University PRess. Cambridge. [2]: (Stockwell 2018, 46) Sarah Stockwell. 2018. The British End of the British Empire. Cambridge University PRess. Cambridge. |
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The following quote suggests the circulation of foreign coinage before the emergence of indigenous coinage. "In south Arabia the earliest coins (fourth/third century BC) are imitations of Athenian tetradrachms, the dollar of their day: the obverse shows the head of Athena with helmet, the reverse has an owl, olive branch, crescent moon and the Greek letters AθE."
[1]
[1]: (Hoyland 2001, 194) Hoyland, R. 2001. Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/hoylan/titleCreatorYear/items/AUHRSTGG/item-list |
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