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Gold; silver; copper. “The link between religion and economic or social forms struck Joseph Townsend, a Wiltshire rector and sharpeyed, though fair-minded, observer of Spain in the course of his perambulations through the country in 1786–7. The excessive ornamentation of the churches in Barcelona, he thought, was due to the gold and silver of the Indies, which ‘came upon them by surprise, and found them unprepared to make a proper use of the abundant treasure’.”(Casey 2002: 2) Casey, James. 2002. Early Modern Spain: A Social History. New York: Routledge. https://www.zotero.org/groups/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/2SNTRSWT “The passing of the imperial age is surely symbolised by the transition from the peso—the ‘piece of eight’ (that is, eight reals, or ten after 1728) —to the little peseta of two reals, a silver coin which could pay a labourer’s wages for half a day. That is, silver no longer flowed abroad so much in payments to bankers and soldiers but could be used at home; so vellón could be partly phased out, and from 1680 its face value was reduced by three-quarters. This stabilisation of the currency no doubt fostered the revival of the Spanish economy in the eighteenth century, contributing to a spread of the internal market. Silver coins themselves, of course, were notoriously vulnerable to hoarding and theft, and the growth of the economy also depended on some extension of credit facilities.”(Casey 2002: 70) Casey, James. 2002. Early Modern Spain: A Social History. New York: Routledge. https://www.zotero.org/groups/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/2SNTRSWT “A ban on imported iron and copperware in 1775 greatly strengthened the Basque metalworking industry, which soon found markets in Europe as well as in Spain and its colonies, and Basque shipbuilding revived as well.”(Maltby 2009: 83) 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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While coins were the dominant form of money, non-coined silver and gold were also used as forms of wealth and exchange in Norman England. [webpage_Home | Domesday Book], [Carpenter 2003]
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“Even after the advent of coin money, commodity currency consisting mainly of gems and jewels and gold and silver would not be worth special mention, for gold ores, for example, would well be considered to be commodity currency. But, special mention may be warranted of the fact that even cereals and cloths were classed as commodity currency, and, as such, this should be listed as one of the outstanding features of Chinese money. […] In the era of Emperor Wen of Wei dynasty during the turbulent period of Three Kingdoms, it was decreed that the ‘masses should cease to handle money and instead barter in cereals and cloth’.”
[1]
[1]: (Hozumi 1954: 21) Hozumi, F. 1954. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE HISTORY OF CHINESE MONEY. Kyoto University Economic Review 24(2): 18-38. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/BGDN5V7V/library |
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Silver mines. “Only under the Saffarids of Sistan was real headway made by the Muslims. Thus Ya’qub b. Layth’s expedition of 256/870 via Balkh to Bamiyan, Kabul and the silver mines of Panjhir brought about the first lengthy Muslim occupation of Kabul.”
[1]
[1]: (Bosworth [ed] 2007, 257) Bosworth, C. E. 2007. Historic Cities of the Islamic World. Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/HGHDXVAC |
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Gold; silver. “The Ming made overtures to Arugtai Taish, bestowing on him the title of ‘Obedient Prince’ (henani van), and ‘Prince of Khar-Khorin’ in 1413, along with a golden helmet, a horse with saddle and bridle, silk, various precious things and 3,000 dan (hundredweight) of grain.”
[1]
“Taisun Khaan and Esen Taish increased the number of annual envoys to the Ming to one thousand. Good horses were presented to the Ming emperor, and a quantity of gold, silver, silk and cloth of equal value was received in return.”
[2]
[1]: (Jamsran 2010: 500) Jamsran, L. 2010. “The Crisis of the Forty and the Four,” in The History of Mongolia: Volume II, Yuan and Late Medieval Period, ed. David Sneath, vol. 2, 3 vols. Kent: Global Oriental. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/D8IE2XAD [2]: (Jamsran 2010: 506) Jamsran, L. 2010. “The Crisis of the Forty and the Four,” in The History of Mongolia: Volume II, Yuan and Late Medieval Period, ed. David Sneath, vol. 2, 3 vols. Kent: Global Oriental. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/D8IE2XAD |
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Gold had been used widely in the preceding polities for hundreds of years and began to be mined throughout the Empire, particularly the Americas and Africa.
[1]
[1]: (Colquhoun 1811: 130) Colquhoun, Patrik. 1814. Treatise on the Wealth, Power and Resources of the British Empire in Every Quarter of the World Etc. Jos. Mawman. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/3SNZA6FJ |
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Gold, silver, iron, from Roman-Britain and then imported by the Anglo-Saxon immigrants were present. Gold, silver, and semi-precious stones have been found in wealthy male burials from the sixth century. The ship burial found at Sutton Hoo, possibly that of King Raedwald (died c. 625 CE), is the largest ever discovered.
[1]
“Kent seems to have taken the lead in the production of coin in England and, as its first issues and subsequent adaptations are in line with what happened in Francia, it is likely that exchange with Francia was a main function of the coinage. The first Kentish coins were probably struck in the late sixth century and imitated Merovingian gold tremisses… The Kentish gold coins are rare until the second quarter of the seventh century when some seem to have been struck in London as well as in Kent itself and one of the London issues apparently carries the name of King Eadbald. It was not normal in this period for the monarch’s name to appear on coins and consequently it has been questioned whether kings enjoyed a monopoly on the production of coin before the introduction of the named penny coinages of the late eighth century.”
[2]
“While the number and range of furnishings vary, many contain a minority of burials with significant numbers of accompanying artefacts, while some contain exceptionally wealthy graves. The latter date predominantly to the last three decades of the sixth century and the first three of the seventh,84 but silver brooches, semi-precious stones and weapon sets are a feature of a significant minority of graves even of an earlier period, and some examples are generally read as indicators of high status.85 While some raw materials clearly derived from long-distance communication and exchange, which stretched across the continent, others may well have come from Britain. Iron was mined in the Weald and elsewhere, but silver deposits were virtually absent from that part of Britain in which either furnished inhumations or cremations occur before the mid-sixth century. It was, however, extracted in significant quantities in later Roman Britain (as a by-product of lead), in the Mendips, in north-eastern Wales and the Derbyshire Peaks. It could also have been obtained by melting down existing bullion, such as plate or coin. If the early cemetery users obtained much of their silver from Britain, this was necessarily from the Britons Ultimately, and certainly by the eighth century, powerful English kings established direct control of silver producing locales, such as Wirksworth in Derbyshire and the Mendips, both of which fell to the Mercians.”
[3]
[1]: (Yorke 1990: 9) York, Barbara. 1990. Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203447307. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/YXTNCWJN [2]: (Yorke 1990: 40-41) York, Barbara. 1990. Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203447307. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/YXTNCWJN [3]: (Higham 2004: 14-15) 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 |
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Gold had been used widely in the preceding polities for hundreds of years and began to be mined throughout the Empire, particularly the Americas and Africa.
[1]
[1]: (Colquhoun 1811: 130) Colquhoun, Patrik. 1814. Treatise on the Wealth, Power and Resources of the British Empire in Every Quarter of the World Etc. Jos. Mawman. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/3SNZA6FJ |
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No data.
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As Northern Song.
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non-coined silver, gold, platinum
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Unknown. could unprocessed gold dust or nuggets have been used in exchange in article trading? (the trading of a gold necklace would come under articles).
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no data
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present for earlier periods.
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No information found in sources so far.
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Gold served as an important basis for trade and was taxed by the rulers: ’In ancient times the Omanhene held the whole unoccupied land in his territory as trustee for the people, and as they increased so this public land was brought under cultivation. The chiefs of the different towns were actually placed in charge of the unoccupied land in the districts, or were considered as caretakers for the Omanhene. When a tribe was conquered it became subject of the conqueror’s stool; these people continued to hold and enjoy the lands under cultivation; but used forests and unoccupied land as public property attached to the [Page 16] stool of the Omanhene. * Besides the public land, the Omanhene has attached to his stool family land in the [Page 17] occupation of his family; his subsequent deposition does not affect the possession of the family. The Omanhene can live and reside and farm on any unoccupied part of his territory without the leave or permission of the sub-ruler, who holds it as caretaker, but he cannot sell or lease it without the concurrence of such sub-ruler. He is entitled to an Ebusã of the sub-ruler’s Ebusã. His immediate followers or household servants may mine for him, but no tribute is payable to the sub-ruler. The subordinate captains (Safuhene, pl. Asafuhene) are bound to obey the commands of the Ohene and pay tribute to him of all gold gotten from gold workings. It is not usual to pay Ebusã to the Ohene or Safuhene on the ordinary [Page 18] washing for alluvial gold. Ebusã is only paid when work is being done in a goldfield, or when one has found an unusually large quantity of gold or discovered a large nugget, or persons are systematically mining.’
[1]
’The manner in which the ruler of a town four centuries ago derived revenue by means of tithes from his people is thus quaintly described by Artus. “When they have used the land and their harvest done, then they sell part of their corn to other men, who are not able to sow it, and by that means get a good quantity of gold; they give some to their king for rent of his land, and carry it home to his house, every one as much as he thinketh good. For there is no certain sum appointed for them to pay, but every one giveth according to his ability, and the quantity of ground that he hath used, and bringeth it unto the king, so that he hath at least five or six bendas of gold of them at one time; which they carry altogether to their [Page 29] king, who welcometh them for this Dache, * or gift; and for their labours giveth them their bellies full of meat and drink, and that they pay to the king for the farm of his lands and no more.”’
[2]
’In all the sea-coast towns the head ruler collected or received one-fourth part of the fish caught by fishermen. Tolls were collected on traders passing through the district; he was also entitled to receive tribute of a third, and in some cases of a fourth, of gold recovered by mining, rubber, and other products. Finders of large nuggets were bound to send the same to the head ruler on penalty of capital punishment. Three hundred years ago persons who recovered gold by mining or otherwise could not retain for their own use more than a half. The Ohene is also entitled to receive the tail of every elephant slain in his district, and he alone can use it. One-fourth part of game killed on his family land has to be sent to him.’
[3]
Gold was a major interest of European traders: ’The ships were manned with a crew of seven score, and with ordnance and victuals requisite for such an adventure. Windham was outrageously incensed because he was associated with Pinteado, a wise, discreet, and sober man, who for his skill in sailing, being as well an expert pilot as a [Page 65] politic captain, was sometime in great favour with the King of Portugal, and was one of the gentlemen of the king his master’s house. The ships traded along the Gold Coast, and got as much as an hundred and fifty pounds’ weight of gold. Against the advice of Pinteado, Windham insisted on proceeding to Benin, where they met with great disaster; for here Windham, Pinteado, and almost two-thirds of the crew, died of fever. The large quantity of gold brought to England by these ships undoubtedly stirred up and encouraged others to venture forth.’
[4]
[1]: Sarbah, John Mensah 1968. "Fanti National Constitution: A Short Treatise On The Constitution And Government Of The Fanti, Asant, And Other Akan Tribes of West Africe Together With A Brief Account Of The Discovery Of The Gold Coast By Portuguese Navigators, A Short Narration of Early English Voyages, And A Stody Of The Rise of British Gold Coast Jurisdiction, Etc., Etc.", 16p [2]: 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.”, 28p [3]: 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.”, 29 [4]: 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.”, 64p |
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It has been generally argued that in ancient societies economic transactions were also based on fruitful barter.
[1]
[2]
[1]: Garrraty, C. P. 2010. "Investigating market exchange in ancient societies: a theoretical review," in Garraty, C. P. and Stark, B. L. (eds), Archaeological Approaches to Market Exchange in Ancient Societies, Colorado, 3-32 [2]: Chadwick, J. 1976. The Mycenaean World, Cambridge, 78. |
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Kautilya in the Arthashastra wrote "rich in gold and silver, filled with an abundance of big gems of various colours and of gold coins, and capable to withstand calamities of long duration is the best treasury."
[1]
[1]: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Arthashastra/ |
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Baghdad was a metropolis and a trade center.
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Silver.
[1]
[1]: (Liverani 2014, 203) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7DRZQS5Q/q/liverani. |
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"There were two main units of value in Mesopotamia: barley and silver (and sometimes copper). Barley was readily available, of low value, and thus often present in exchanges. On the contrary, silver was a precious and rare metal, but also non-perishable (since it could not be consumed), allowing its accumulation."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 71) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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e. g. gold, silver
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gold was used as a store of wealth (cf J.-M. Carrié 2003 "Solidus et Credit") and conceivably was used for payment.
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gold was used as a store of wealth (cf J.-M. Carrié 2003 "Solidus et Credit") and conceivably was used for payment.
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Great trading region.
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Gold.
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Great trading location.
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Gold.
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Gold and silver dinars minted.
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non-coined silver, gold, platinum
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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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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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Copper was present from Mehrgarh III
[1]
, but may not have been used as ’money’.
[1]: Petrie, C. A. (in press) Chapter 11, Case Study: Mehrgarh. In, Barker, G and Goucher, C (eds.) Cambridge World History, Volume 2: A World with Agriculture, 12,000 BCE - 500 CE. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge |
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Inferred from the fact that these are not mentioned in Van Dongen’s detailed lists of all the types of "money" circulating in Thailand in the Ayutthaya and Rattanakosin periods.
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gold was used as a store of wealth (cf J.-M. Carrié 2003 "Solidus et Credit") and conceivably was used for payment.
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Dowry payments were made in silver pieces. The context suggests that those were coins rather than tokens: ’In the old days the gift and dowry were given in terms of the number of cows instead of money. Recently, they have been changed to silver pieces, and the larger the amount, the more magnificent it is for the girl’s family. If the amount is small then the girl’s status is considered low and it becomes a disgrace to the family. When the question of the bride price is settled (with the Hua Miao the highest gift comes to $100 or more) the go-between appoints a date to convey it to the girl’s family. Accepting the gift, the family gives a feast, in which friends and relatives are invited to keep the go-between company and to regale him with meat and wine. This is the engagement. Before the wedding day, the gift donation must be fully paid up through the go-between; but if the girl’s family is fond of the future son-in-law, half or all the bride price may be waived. [...] The following day or the third day the bride returns home with her companions, and the host dispenses cash presents to all the members of the bridal party. The other guests stay on to partake of the farewell feast. After her return the bride stays with her parents for a month or fortnight, and has to be welcomed back to her new home by her husband. But the girl’s family would keep the son-in-law as a house guest for several days before sending the young couple away. After a short stay the bride goes back again to live with her mother, and only on New Year, at festivals and harvest times, would she accompany her husband home to stay for a few days as a guest of his family. It is only after the children are born that she lives permanently with him. One month after the birth of the first child there would be a feast, and the wife’s family would send along some baby clothes and, in case of a wealthy family, also cows and pigs. Those who have received cash gifts from the husband’s family at the wedding would now give in return baby’s bedding and clothing as well as chicken and duck eggs. Friends and relatives would each carry with him a sheng /a measure equivalent to 31.6 cubic inches/ of rice and a jug of wine to partake in a feast provided by the host, who would slaughter cattle or buy pork and beef from the market for the occasion.’
[1]
[1]: Che-lin, Wu, Chen Kuo-chün, and Lien-en Tsao 1942. “Studies Of Miao-I Societies In Kweichow”, 12 |
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"The wealth of some farmers is also expressed in private documents, like a late 2nd millennium letter from Elephantine stating that several nemeh-cultivators paid their taxes to the treasury in gold."
[1]
[1]: (Juan Carlos Moreno García, Recent Developments in the Social and Economic History of Ancient Egypt, 17) |
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’The ornaments can also be used as token of love promise and mascot for children to ward off evil forces, or even tradable or stored directly as money. Therefore, the silver ornaments of Miao are not only decorations, but also a cultural carrier rooted in the social life of the Miao.’
[1]
[1]: http://www.arjumandsworld.com/blog/Miao-people-arjumand/ |
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non-coined silver, gold, platinum. Silver ingots most widely used, and since the weights of each individual piece varied, they were treated as bullion and measured in tael. Ingots were privately made, first coming into use in Guangdong before spreading into the lower Yangtze c.1420 CE. Silver ingots were used for trade and for the payment of provincial taxes until the value of silver became too dear due to contractions caused by reduced access to silver from Japan and Spain in the mid 17th century.
[1]
[1]: (Chen, 2018, p.354) |
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non-coined silver, gold, platinum.
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The Indians of Pocigueica exchanged gold and cloth for salt and fish with the coastal groups. "Los indios de Pocigueica cambiaban oro y mantas por sal y pescado con los grupos de la costa (32, II, 18; 18, V, 282)"
[1]
Fish or salt could be traded for goods with high symbolic value which took a quasi-monetary position in a large area of circulation; among them textiles, coca leaves, volcanic stone beads, and gold objects. "Los bienes de este intercambio podían ser objetos como el pescado o la sal, a cambio de bienes de alto valor simbólico que tomaban una posi- ción cuasi-monetaria en una amplia área de circulación; entre éstos los textiles, hojas de coca, cuentas de rocas volcánicas (usadas en tiempos de la conquista para ofrendas, curación, intercambio, collares) (Reichel, 1951:85)) y objetos de oro."
[2]
[1]: (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1951, 90) [2]: (Oyuela-Caycedo 1990, 65) |
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|
Gold dust was used in trade and (short-lived) tribute relations with Spanish intruders: ’The first reported white penetration of Jivaro territory was made in 1549 by a Spanish expedition under Hernando de Benavente. Later expeditions of colonists and soldiers soon followed. These newcomers traded with the Jivaro, made peace pacts with them, and soon began to exploit the gold found in alluvial or glacial deposits in the region. Eventually the Spaniards were able to obtain the co-operation of some of the Indians in working the gold deposits, but others remained hostile, killing many of the colonists and soldiers at every opportunity. Under the subjection of the Spaniards, the Jivaro were required to pay tribute in gold dust; a demand that increased yearly. Finally, in 1599, the Jivaro rebelled en masse, killing many thousands of Spaniards in the process and driving them from the region. After 1599, until nearly the middle of the nineteenth century, Jivaro-European relations remained intermittent and mostly hostile. A few missionary and military expeditions entered the region from the Andean highlands, but these frequently ended in disaster and no permanent colonization ever resulted. One of the few "friendly" gestures reported for the tribe during this time occurred in 1767, when they gave a Spanish missionizing expedition "gifts", which included the skulls of Spaniards who had apparently been killed earlier by the Jivaro (Harner, 1953: 26). Thus it seems that the Jivaros are the only tribe known to have successfully revolted against the Spanish Empire and to have been able to thwart all subsequent attempts by the Spaniards to conquer them. They have withstood armies of gold seeking Inkas as well as Spaniards, and defied the bravado of the early conquistadors.’
[1]
[Shuar parties would occasionally travel to colono settlements to trade , and even travel up to Andean cities to trade gold powder against metal tools. There are records of such incursions in last quarter of 18th century and again between 1850 and 1880.] As records of excursions seem to exceed the 1549-1599 period, the variable was coded present on the general level.
[1]: Beierle, John: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Jivaro |
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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’. Gold dust had been used in trade and (short-lived) tribute relations with Spanish intruders: ’The first reported white penetration of Jivaro territory was made in 1549 by a Spanish expedition under Hernando de Benavente. Later expeditions of colonists and soldiers soon followed. These newcomers traded with the Jivaro, made peace pacts with them, and soon began to exploit the gold found in alluvial or glacial deposits in the region. Eventually the Spaniards were able to obtain the co-operation of some of the Indians in working the gold deposits, but others remained hostile, killing many of the colonists and soldiers at every opportunity. Under the subjection of the Spaniards, the Jivaro were required to pay tribute in gold dust; a demand that increased yearly. Finally, in 1599, the Jivaro rebelled en masse, killing many thousands of Spaniards in the process and driving them from the region. After 1599, until nearly the middle of the nineteenth century, Jivaro-European relations remained intermittent and mostly hostile. A few missionary and military expeditions entered the region from the Andean highlands, but these frequently ended in disaster and no permanent colonization ever resulted. One of the few "friendly" gestures reported for the tribe during this time occurred in 1767, when they gave a Spanish missionizing expedition "gifts", which included the skulls of Spaniards who had apparently been killed earlier by the Jivaro (Harner, 1953: 26). Thus it seems that the Jivaros are the only tribe known to have successfully revolted against the Spanish Empire and to have been able to thwart all subsequent attempts by the Spaniards to conquer them. They have withstood armies of gold seeking Inkas as well as Spaniards, and defied the bravado of the early conquistadors.’
[1]
[Shuar parties would occasionally travel to colono settlements to trade , and even travel up to Andean cities to trade gold powder against metal tools. There are records of such incursions in last quarter of 18th century and again between 1850 and 1880.] As records of excursions seem to exceed the 1549-1599 period, the variable was coded present on the general level.
[1]: Beierle, John: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Jivaro |
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|
"Yet there is evidence that the empire confiscated temple property, and over time this policy may have become harsher in reaction to Egyptian rebellions. Thus, the report of Greek historians that Artaxerxes III Ochus plundered temples and carried off vast quantities of gold and silver upon recapturing the country after its spell of independence in 343, is likely to be true."
[1]
The fact that the Persians confiscated gold and silver indicates that they had been hoarded for their economic value when Egypt was independent.
[1]: (Van de Mieroop 2011, 308) |
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|
Present in the later New Kingdom. "The wealth of some farmers is also expressed in private documents, like a late 2nd millennium letter from Elephantine stating that several nemeh-cultivators paid their taxes to the treasury in gold."
[1]
[1]: (Juan Carlos Moreno García, Recent Developments in the Social and Economic History of Ancient Egypt, 17) |
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|
Silver from the Americas used in trade
[1]
[1]: (Philips and Philips 2010, 193) Philips, William D. and Carla Rahn Philips. 2010. A Concise History of Spain. Cambridge: CUP. https://www.zotero.org/groups/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/ZT84ZFTP |
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|
"Sent oxen, salt and iron to trade with Sasu (south-west Ethiopia) for gold.
[1]
[1]: (Kobishanov 1981, 387) 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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|
"There is evidence of these new circulation networks in the fact that we find, in some areas, objects and materials that must have come from far away, because they are not characteristic of these particular areas. They are naturally scarce materials (gold), materials that are found only in very limited areas (obsidian), and exotic materials (ivory from Africa and amber from the Baltic)."
[1]
[1]: (Clop Garcia 2001, 26) |
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|
Non-monetary economy at local level. Bullion not coin used on eastern frontiers. West = coin archaeology. East = scales for weighing bullion found.
[1]
Roman coinage finds in Merovingian burials suggests use of late Roman coins, perhaps as bullion due to high metal content.
[2]
[1]: (Wood 1994, 217-219) [2]: (Wood ed. 1998, 407) |
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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’. ’At least from the beginning of the 18th century on, the Asante economy was growing, as is shown in the adoption of units of gold dust as currency in the territories of the Asante Union in the reign of Osei Tutu, 1712 (Reindorf 1895:17). In the absence of the kinds of descriptions of the Asante area that were made by European and other travellers to Kumasi in the 19th century, it is impossible to detail this growth. One can only suggest that what visitors reported in the first half of the 19th century represented its culmination.’
[1]
[1]: Arhin, Kwame 1983. “Peasants In 19Th-Century Asante”, 471 |
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|
Minting in Greece was introduced around 6th century BCE. Before that period economic transactions were based on a barter system of spits, precious artifacts and metals, animals, food, and services.
[1]
[2]
[1]: e.g. Seaford, R. 2004. Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy, Cambridge, 125-46 [2]: Tejado, R. and Guerra, G. 2012. "From barter to coins: shifting cognitive frames in Classical Greek economy," in Herrero-Soler, H. and White, A.(eds.), Metaphore and Milles. Figurative Language in Business and Economics, Berlin/Boston, 27-4. |
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|
Economic transactions were also based on a barter system of precious artifacts and metals, animals, food, and services.
[1]
[2]
[1]: e.g. Seaford, R. 2004. Money and the Eraly Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy, Cambridge, 125-46 [2]: Tejado, R. and Guerra, G. 2012. "From barter to coins: shifting cognitive frames in Classical Greek economy," in Herrero-Soler, H. and White, A.(eds), Metaphore and Milles. Figurative Language in Business and Economics, Berlin/Boston, 27-48. |
||||||
|
Minting in Greece was introduced around 6th century BCE. Before that period economic transactions were based on a barter system of spits, precious artifacts and metals, animals, food, and services.
[1]
[2]
[1]: e.g. Seaford, R. 2004. Money and the Eraly Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy, Cambridge, 125-46 [2]: Tejado, R. and Guerra, G. 2012. "From barter to coins: shifting cognitive frames in Classical Greek economy," in Herrero-Soler, H. and White, A.(eds), Metaphore and Milles. Figurative Language in Business and Economics, Berlin/Boston, 27-48. |
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|
It has been generally argued that all economic transactions were based on fruitful barter.
[1]
Recent research, however, suggest that market exchanges also existed in prehistory Aegean
[2]
[3]
[1]: e.g. Chadwick, J. 1976. The Mycenaean World, Cambridge, 78. [2]: Christakis, K. S. 2008. The Politics of the Storage. Storage and Sociopolitical Complexity in Neopalatial Crete (Prehistory Monographs 25), Philadelphia, 138-39 [3]: Parkinson, W., Nakassis, D., and Galaty, M. L. 2013. "Crafts, Specialists, and Markets in Mycenaean Greece: Introduction," American Journal of Archaeology 117, 413-22. |
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|
It has been generally argued that in ancient societies economic transactions were also based on fruitful barter.
[1]
[2]
[1]: Garrraty, C. P. 2010. "Investigating market exchange in ancient societies: a theoretical review," in Garraty, C. P. and Stark, B. L. (eds), Archaeological Approaches to Market Exchange in Ancient Societies, Colorado, 3-32 [2]: Chadwick, J. 1976. The Mycenaean World, Cambridge, 78. |
||||||
|
It has been generally argued that all economic transactions were based on fruitful barter.
[1]
Recent research, however, suggest that market exchanges also existed in prehistory Aegean.
[2]
[3]
[1]: e.g. Chadwick, J. 1976. The Mycenaean World, Cambridge, 78. [2]: Christakis, K. S. 2008. The Politics of the Storage. Storage and Sociopolitical Complexity in Neopalatial Crete (Prehistory Monographs 25), Philadelphia, 138-39 [3]: Parkinson, W., Nakassis, D., and Galaty, M. L. 2013. "Crafts, Specialists, and Markets in Mycenaean Greece: Introduction," American Journal of Archaeology 117, 413-22. |
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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’.
|
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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: ‘Perhaps the most important single characteristic of a nokma is the possession of titles to land. The land which surrounds a village is divided into numerous patches, and titles to these patches are typically distributed among a few of the richest households of the village, including those of the nokmas. A plot of land to which a man holds title is known as a’king, and a nokma who holds a title is known as an a’king nokma. Titles to a’king can be bought and sold among members of the village; however, at the present time sale is unusual, and land titles often stay in the same family for generations, always being inherited intact by the heir and heiress of the last title-holders. Prices in the past have varied from 25 to 75 rupees for the amount of land suitable for one family’s cultivation; on the other hand, titles even today are sometimes purchased with brass gongs instead of money.’
[1]
No precious metals are mentioned. 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.’
[2]
The precise nature of these taxes still need to be established.
[1]: Burling, Robbins 1963. “Rengsanggri: Family And Kinship In A Garo Village”, 225 [2]: 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’ After the introduction of foreign currency, barter was increasingly displaced by monetized exchange, but did not die out completely. Brass objects were particularly valuable: ‘Perhaps the most important single characteristic of a nokma is the possession of titles to land. The land which surrounds a village is divided into numerous patches, and titles to these patches are typically distributed among a few of the richest households of the village, including those of the nokmas. A plot of land to which a man holds title is known as a’king, and a nokma who holds a title is known as an a’king nokma. Titles to a’king can be bought and sold among members of the village; however, at the present time sale is unusual, and land titles often stay in the same family for generations, always being inherited intact by the heir and heiress of the last title-holders. Prices in the past have varied from 25 to 75 rupees for the amount of land suitable for one family’s cultivation; on the other hand, titles even today are sometimes purchased with brass gongs instead of money.’
[1]
No precious metals are mentioned.
[1]: Burling, Robbins 1963. “Rengsanggri: Family And Kinship In A Garo Village”, 225 |
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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 |
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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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|
"There were two main units of value in Mesopotamia: barley and silver (and sometimes copper). Barley was readily available, of low value, and thus often present in exchanges. On the contrary, silver was a precious and rare metal, but also non-perishable (since it could not be consumed), allowing its accumulation."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 71) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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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. |
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|
Copper as well as obsidian were important and value materials, however there is no proof, that they were used in they same way on the whole Ubaid territory. The most problematic is to establish the significance of copper which is relatively rare in the Ubaid and the richest deposits of cooper artifacts came from cemetery at Susa.
[1]
[1]: Hole 1983, 318 |
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|
part of taxes in form of precious metals.
[1]
"Achaemenid "bar-ingots" may have been ancestral to some of the Indian "bent-bar" currency."
[2]
[1]: (Morris and Scheidel 2008, 83) Morris I and Scheidel, W. 2008. The Dynamics of Ancient Empires: State Power from Assyria to Byzantium. Oxford University Press. [2]: (Unknown 1972, 54)Unknown. 1972. Seaby’s coin and medal bulletin, Issues 641-652, B.A. Seaby Limited. |
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|
"There were two main units of value in Mesopotamia: barley and silver (and sometimes copper). Barley was readily available, of low value, and thus often present in exchanges. On the contrary, silver was a precious and rare metal, but also non-perishable (since it could not be consumed), allowing its accumulation."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 71) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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|
"There were two main units of value in Mesopotamia: barley and silver (and sometimes copper). Barley was readily available, of low value, and thus often present in exchanges. On the contrary, silver was a precious and rare metal, but also non-perishable (since it could not be consumed), allowing its accumulation."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 71) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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|
"There were two main units of value in Mesopotamia: barley and silver (and sometimes copper). Barley was readily available, of low value, and thus often present in exchanges. On the contrary, silver was a precious and rare metal, but also non-perishable (since it could not be consumed), allowing its accumulation."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 71) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
||||||
|
"There were two main units of value in Mesopotamia: barley and silver (and sometimes copper). Barley was readily available, of low value, and thus often present in exchanges. On the contrary, silver was a precious and rare metal, but also non-perishable (since it could not be consumed), allowing its accumulation."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 71) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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|
In Roman stone art c.170 CE from Coblenz: "The Parthian who proffers gold bars is not necessarily portrayed as an enemy defeated in battle but as a fascinating stranger from the East serving a rich Roman(ised) master in the West."
[1]
[1]: (Wiesehöfer 2007) Wiesehöfer, Josef in Curtis, Vesta Sarkhosh and Stewart, Sarah eds. 2007. The Age of the Parthians. I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd. London. |
||||||
|
In Roman stone art c.170 CE from Coblenz: "The Parthian who proffers gold bars is not necessarily portrayed as an enemy defeated in battle but as a fascinating stranger from the East serving a rich Roman(ised) master in the West."
[1]
[1]: (Wiesehöfer 2007) Wiesehöfer, Josef in Curtis, Vesta Sarkhosh and Stewart, Sarah eds. 2007. The Age of the Parthians. I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd. London. |
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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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|
"There were two main units of value in Mesopotamia: barley and silver (and sometimes copper). Barley was readily available, of low value, and thus often present in exchanges. On the contrary, silver was a precious and rare metal, but also non-perishable (since it could not be consumed), allowing its accumulation."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 71) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
||||||
|
"There were two main units of value in Mesopotamia: barley and silver (and sometimes copper). Barley was readily available, of low value, and thus often present in exchanges. On the contrary, silver was a precious and rare metal, but also non-perishable (since it could not be consumed), allowing its accumulation."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 71) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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|
’During the Icelandic Commonwealth people used foreign coins but only in the sense as a piece of precious metal. The nominal value of the coins was irrelevant. Often coins were cut up to match the price of a purchase.’
[1]
eHRAF mentions a silver ounce standard: ’There were no formal markets and most exchanges and payments, such as rents, were made in kind. Regular assemblies provided a venue for traders and specialized producers who also traveled among farmsteads. Despite the rarity of monetary exchanges, the Icelanders maintained a complex system of value equivalencies based on a silver ounce standard that encompassed most exchangeable goods.’
[2]
[1]: Árni Daniel Júlíusson and Axel Kristissen 2017, pers. comm. to E. Brandl and D. Mullins [2]: Bolender, Douglas James and Beierle, John: eHRAF Cultural Summary for Early Icelanders |
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|
The latter part of this period made up the seventeenth-century crisis, following the Price Revolution brought on by the influx of New World silver.
[1]
From the early fifteenth century and on into the seventeenth, the papacy controlled the mines of Tolfa through Florentine investors.
[2]
[1]: Marino, 64 [2]: Goldthwaite, 173 |
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|
gold was used as a store of wealth (cf J.-M. Carrié 2003 "Solidus et Credit") and conceivably was used for payment.
|
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|
gold was used as a store of wealth (cf J.-M. Carrié 2003 "Solidus et Credit") and conceivably was used for payment.
|
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|
’When coins stopped being minted in Nara and early Heian, gold and silver came to be employed quite widely by Heian nobles. Both were used to purchase goods from Chinese trading vessels at Dazaifu. When gold and silver production dropped, and these metals no longer functioned as substitutes for minted coins.’
[1]
’The coins were legally valued at more than the worth of their metallic content.’
[2]
[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.637 [2]: 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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|
’others provided gold, horses, copper verdigris, iron, sea bream, and incense. This tax system reflected the special goods produced in the various regions of Japan.’
[1]
[1]: Yamamura, Kozo (ed). 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan. Vol. 3. Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press [sixth edition].p.99 |
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|
‘Ieyasu also used precious metals in trade, gift giving, and decoration. But he went farther than his predecessors in establishing the credibility of money by suppressing inferior coins, setting up regulated mints, and issuing currency and bullion of reliable weight and fineness. In 1601 he commissioned trusted merchants to establish silver, gold, and copper mints (giza, kinza, and doza) in Fushimi and Sunpu (later moved to Kyoto and Edo) and to mint bullion from this mines into coins with specified values based on their metallic content.’
[1]
[1]: Totman, Conrad. 1993. Early Modern Japan. University of California Press. Berkeley; London.p.71. |
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|
’Strong evidence against the importance of trade or markets is the absence of money in post-6th-century Cambodia in contrast to Funan which had coinage’
[1]
’Neither is there reference to coinage, although precious metals are mentioned as objects of exchanges among donors and temples. The lack of coinage seems confirmed by the inability of archaeologists or architects excavating and restoring temples to discover any coins which may be dated between the end of the Funan and the post-Angkor period.’
[2]
’Stored assets were also a form of tradable wealth. Surviving texts suggest that rice, cloth, or ironware could be traded, thus allowing pon to indulge in trade not only for basic food and cloth, but also for bankable assets, such as gold and silver.’
[3]
[1]: (Vickery 1998, 314) [2]: (Vickery 1998, 275) [3]: (Higham 2004, 76) |
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|
’The city [near the modern Vietnamese village of Oc-Eco in the Mekong Delta] probably provided warehousing for goods in transit between India and China and was an outlet for products collected from the forested interior of Cambodia and Vietnam. Until the twentieth century, forest products and precious metals made up the bulk of Cambodia’s export trade. These included gold, elephants, ivory, rhinoceros horn, kingfisher feathers, wild spices like cardamom, and forest products such as lacquer, hides, and aromatic wood.’
[1]
’They described a country to the south ruled by a king who resided in a palace in a walled settlement.’
[2]
"Taxes are paid in gold, silver, pearls and perfumes. They have books and repositories of archives and other things. Their writing characters resemble those of the Hu (i.e. the Indians)". (Pelliot, ibid, p. 254)
[3]
Chinese sources from the 5th century CE estate that "In Funan, they always use gold in their transactions".
[4]
[1]: (Chandler 2008, p. 19) [2]: (Higham 2012b, p. 590) [3]: (Jacques and Lafond 2007, p. 51) [4]: (Wicks 1992, p. 184) |
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|
’The city [near the modern Vietnamese village of Oc-Eco in the Mekong Delta] probably provided warehousing for goods in transit between India and China and was an outlet for products collected from the forested interior of Cambodia and Vietnam. Until the twentieth century, forest products and precious metals made up the bulk of Cambodia’s export trade. These included gold, elephants, ivory, rhinoceros horn, kingfisher feathers, wild spices like cardamom, and forest products such as lacquer, hides, and aromatic wood.’
[1]
’They described a country to the south ruled by a king who resided in a palace in a walled settlement.’
[2]
’Taxes are paid in gold, silver, pearls and perfumes. They have books and repositories of archives and other things. Their writing characters resemble those of the Hu (i.e. the Indians)". (Pelliot, ibid, p. 254)
[3]
’The 1st to 5th century site of Oc Eo on Vietnam’s coast, then on the east-west maritime trade route, has produced, among other artefacts, a Vishnuite silver coin and a Roman gold medallion (Malleret 1959-62; Coe 2003; 66-67), but there is no evidence that Funan minted its own coinage (Sahai 1971: 94; Wicks 1992: 186). Indeed, the Chinese reported that taxes in Funan were paid in gold, silver, pearls and perfumes (Pelliot 1903: 252).’
[4]
’
[1]: (Chandler 2008, p. 19) [2]: (Higham 2012b, p. 590) [3]: (Jacques and Lafond 2007, p. 51) [4]: (Lustig 2009, p. 82) |
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|
Gold.
|
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|
"With time, the problem of the currency circulation unification was acute in the empire. Allsen (1987: 180182) believes that a role of the universal currency has been played by the silver bar (Mong. süke, Chinese - ting, Persian - balīsh, Uigur - yastug, Russ. slitok)."
[1]
[1]: (Kradin 2013, 173) |
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|
Devisse (1988) commissioned an exact translation of Al Bakri’s famous passages concerning gold which "brings a new solution to the to the interpretation of the pair tibr-dhahab." Ghali, the translator, found that tibr meant gold in rough state, compared to dhabab, which was gold in a worked state (refined gold). What do we make of Al Bakri’s claim "the sovereign regulated the circulation of gold by keeping the nuggets, so that the metal did not depreciate through overabundance? ... The traditional distinction between nuggets and dust does not hold water. The real distinction is a different one: ’pure’ gold, which by definition the ruler set aside for himself and which was intended for coinage, was dhabab."
[1]
However, gold not used for coinage: "no trace of a die or mint has been found south of the desert."
[2]
[1]: (Devisse 1988, 385) [2]: (Devisse 1988, 387) |
||||||
|
Devisse (1988) commissioned an exact translation of Al Bakri’s famous passages concerning gold which "brings a new solution to the to the interpretation of the pair tibr-dhahab." Ghali, the translator, found that tibr meant gold in rough state, compared to dhabab, which was gold in a worked state (refined gold). What do we make of Al Bakri’s claim "the sovereign regulated the circulation of gold by keeping the nuggets, so that the metal did not depreciate through overabundance? ... The traditional distinction between nuggets and dust does not hold water. The real distinction is a different one: ’pure’ gold, which by definition the ruler set aside for himself and which was intended for coinage, was dhabab."
[1]
However, gold not used for coinage: "no trace of a die or mint has been found south of the desert."
[2]
[1]: (Devisse 1988, 385) [2]: (Devisse 1988, 387) |
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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. |
||||||
|
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. |
||||||
|
Copper was present from Mehrgarh III
[1]
, but may not have been used as ’money’.
[1]: Petrie, C. A. (in press) Chapter 11, Case Study: Mehrgarh. In, Barker, G and Goucher, C (eds.) Cambridge World History, Volume 2: A World with Agriculture, 12,000 BCE - 500 CE. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge |
||||||
|
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. |
||||||
|
The first evidence for the introduction of indigenously produced (copper-based) metallurgy in Mesoamerica is c.600 CE for ornamental valuables,
[1]
and 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.
[2]
[1]: Shugar, Aaron N. and Scott E. Simmons. (2013) Archaeometallurgy in Mesoamerica: Current Approaches and New Perspectives. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, pg. 1-4. [2]: 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. |
||||||
|
The first evidence for the introduction of indigenously produced (copper-based) metallurgy in Mesoamerica is c.600 CE for ornamental valuables,
[1]
and 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.
[2]
[1]: Shugar, Aaron N. and Scott E. Simmons. (2013) Archaeometallurgy in Mesoamerica: Current Approaches and New Perspectives. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, pg. 1-4. [2]: 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. |
||||||
|
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. |
||||||
|
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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|
The following was imported from the Commonwealth-era sheet: ’During the Icelandic Commonwealth people used foreign coins but only in the sense as a piece of precious metal. The nominal value of the coins was irrelevant. Often coins were cut up to match the price of a purchase. We should also specify: gold, silver, copper/bronze.’
[1]
’There were no formal markets and most exchanges and payments, such as rents, were made in kind. Regular assemblies provided a venue for traders and specialized producers who also traveled among farmsteads. Despite the rarity of monetary exchanges, the Icelanders maintained a complex system of value equivalencies based on a silver ounce standard that encompassed most exchangeable goods.’
[2]
[1]: Árni Daniel Júlíusson and Axel Kristissen 2017, pers. comm. to E. Brandl and D. Mullins [2]: Bolender, Douglas James and Beierle, John: eHRAF Cultural Summary for Early Icelanders |
||||||
|
Tribute store houses contained bars of copper and plates of silver and gold.
[1]
Although the monetary use of these resources is not confirmed. "Although they annexed lands with markets, money, and specialized communities, the Incas did not adopt market features into their state economy. Instead, they created an independent set of state resources and institutions that provided for their needs."
[2]
[1]: (Bauer 2004, 96) [2]: (D’Altroy 2014, 394) |
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|
The Wari used precious metals but as symbols of power or for a ritual use. They had no role as a medium of exchange.
|
||||||
|
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’.
|
||||||
|
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’.
|
||||||
|
Copper was present from Mehrgarh III
[1]
, but may not have been used as ’money’.
[1]: Petrie, C. A. (in press) Chapter 11, Case Study: Mehrgarh. In, Barker, G and Goucher, C (eds.) Cambridge World History, Volume 2: A World with Agriculture, 12,000 BCE - 500 CE. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge |
||||||
|
Copper was present from Mehrgarh III
[1]
, but may not have been used as ’money’.
[1]: Petrie, C. A. (in press) Chapter 11, Case Study: Mehrgarh. In, Barker, G and Goucher, C (eds.) Cambridge World History, Volume 2: A World with Agriculture, 12,000 BCE - 500 CE. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge |
||||||
|
Two pieces of gold have been found at Pirak, but it is not known whether they were used for a monetary function.
[1]
In the context of the concurrent Early Vedic, Gold pieces are mentioned in the Vedic texts, and so may have been used as items for exchange.
[2]
[1]: Jarrige, J-F. (1979) Fouilles de Pirak. Paris : Diffusion de Boccard. p363, 372, p379 [2]: Singh, Upinder, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century (New Delhi: Pearson Education, 2008), p.190-191. |
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|
"Based on Mesopotamian texts, the materials that did function in exchanges were "barley, lead, copper or bronze, tin, silver, gold... Barley, lead and copper or bronze...[were]...cheaper monies, tin was mid-range, silver and the much rarer gold were high-range monies" (Powell 1996: 227ff)... What distinguishes silver and barley from the materials listed, along with "cows, sheep, asses, slaves, household utensils" and other items, is that they possessed a common denominator for value based on systems of weighing, measuring, and possibly quality."
[1]
Monetary items were therefore present in the Indus area at this time, and presumed present at Nausharo in order to trade for foreign items
[2]
, but there direct evidence for ’money’ at Nausharo is lacking.
[1]: Wright, R. P. (2010) The Ancient Indus: urbanism, economy and society. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. p260 [2]: Wright, R. P. (2010) The Ancient Indus: urbanism, economy and society. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. p259 |
||||||
|
"Based on Mesopotamian texts, the materials that did function in exchanges were "barley, lead, copper or bronze, tin, silver, gold... Barley, lead and copper or bronze...[were]...cheaper monies, tin was mid-range, silver and the much rarer gold were high-range monies" (Powell 1996: 227ff)... What distinguishes silver and barley from the materials listed, along with "cows, sheep, asses, slaves, household utensils" and other items, is that they possessed a common denominator for value based on systems of weighing, measuring, and possibly quality."
[1]
Monetary items were therefore present in the Indus area at this time, and presumed present at Nausharo in order to trade for foreign items
[2]
, but there direct evidence for ’money’ at Nausharo is lacking.
[1]: Wright, R. P. (2010) The Ancient Indus: urbanism, economy and society. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. p260 [2]: Wright, R. P. (2010) The Ancient Indus: urbanism, economy and society. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. p259 |
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|
"Sudden conflagrations were reported to have consumed 800 houses in Aceh in 1602 and 8000 in 1688; 1260 in Makassar in 1614, and 10,000 in Ayutthaya in 1545, while most of Pattani was burned during a revolt in 1613. For European and Chinese merchants this was a source of endless anxiety, but Southeast Asians appear to have accepted the essential impermanence of their houses, and to have kept what wealth they had in removable gold, jewellery and cloth. After a fire, whole sections of the city would be rebuilt in a matter of three or four days."
[1]
[1]: (Tarling 1993, p. 476) |
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|
unknown Large-scale trade appeared, and there were trade routes from Syro-Palestine to Aegan across the whole Konya Plain. gold, silver, tin, copper, bronze, electrum, iron, lead, hematite, carnelian, rock crystal, chalcedony, lapis lazuli, faience, textiles
[1]
[2]
[1]: Joukowsky M. S., "Early Turkey. An Introduction to the Archeology of Anatolia from Prehistory through the Lydian Period", USA 1996, pp. 166 - 173. [2]: Sagona A. and P. Zimansky, "Ancient Turkey", USA 2009, p. 214 |
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|
Metals according to documents from Kültepe-Kanish dating to the Old Assyrian Colony Period. In Yalcun, Ü. (Ed.), Anatolian Metal III. Der Anschnitt, Beiheft 18. (pp. 17-34). Bochum: Deutsches Bergbau-Museum;
|
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|
Lydia had a reputation among Greek historians for its luxury and opulence.
|
||||||
|
Silver and gold.
[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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|
"On the whole, Sogdian great commerce did extremely well without any coinage of its own. A large-scale barter economy operated from one end of Asia to the other, composed of a few deluxe products in universal demand—precious metals, silk, spices, perfumes. Yet it must be noted that what appears to be barter from a western perspective is actually a monetary exchange from the perspective of the Chinese: Sogdian products were paid for in rolls of silk in China, where silk was in fact a money."
[1]
[1]: (De la Vaissière 2005, 174) |
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|
Aden was an exceptionally busy international port where all sorts of exchanges likely took place.
|
||||||
|
This is based on the codes for the Rasulids as ’Sultan ’Amir also appears to have been emulating the high period of Rasulid power a hundred years earlier’
[1]
. Aden was an exceptionally busy international port where all sorts of exchanges likely too place.
[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. 4 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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|
Gold dust and bracelets. “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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|
“Purchases of land, slaves, and major commodities were made using a single or combination of currencies such as kola nuts, stamped gold coins (mithqal), and cowry shells. The mithqal was made from gold imported from Bonduku (in present-day Ivory Coast) and minted. It was used extensively along trade routes between central Nigerian kingdoms and the Hausa Kingdoms.”
[1]
[1]: Falola, Toyin, and Ann Genova. Historical Dictionary of Nigeria. The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2009: 90. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/search/dictionary/titleCreatorYear/items/SJAIVKDW/item-list |
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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. |
||||||
|
"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. |
||||||
|
"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. |
||||||
|
"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. |
||||||
|
"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. |
||||||
|
"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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|
"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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|
“In the last decade of his life [Mohammed Ali], the records say, the Nawab began to lose faith in the British. He foresaw the time when his descendants would be reduced to small Jaghirdars. He frequently protested to the King against the high-handedness of the Governors, and to the Governors against the bad behaviour of British soldiers. His protests to the King against the British demand that all payments be made in gold and silver, which affected gold currency in India, were ignored.”
[1]
[1]: (Ramaswami 1984, 333) Ramaswami, N.S. 1984. Political History of Carnatic Under the Nawabs. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/PTIS9MB4/collection |
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|
Silver bullion and gold kobans. “Imported precious metals could either be traded for fanams from professional money changers or shroffs (cirappu, carappu) known as taksal shroffs (Hindi ‘mint’) specialised in buying bullion or foreign coins from the public or melted and converted directly at the local mint. A contemporary list of these merchants, active in 1680s, include names such as Vasanappa Nayaka (trading gold kobans and silver bullion for a total of 4, 200 fanams); Ponni Chitti (trading gold kobans for 6, 808 fanams) […]”
[1]
[1]: (Vink 2015, 182) 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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|
The following quote suggests that precious metals were likely present. “Kanam was a measure of gold (coin?), very small in size. Pons referred to perhaps the same measure as kanam. Kasu was a kind of coin of the size of a margosa fruit and the shape of a lotus bud. In later age kasu generally meant a small copper coin. Silver was called velli and rarely ven pon. Iron was also known as pon.
[1]
[1]: (Agnihotri 1988, 355) Agnihotri, V.K. 1988. Indian History. New Delhi: Allied Publishers Pvt. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/PNX9XBJQ/collection |
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|
The following quote discusses weight measurements of gold coins during the Sangam period in Tamil Nadu. “Kanam was a measure of gold (coin?), very small in size. Pons referred to perhaps the same measure as kanam.”
[1]
[1]: (Agnihotri 1988, 355) Agnihotri, V.K. 1988. Indian History. New Delhi: Allied Publishers Pvt. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/PNX9XBJQ/collection |
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|
The following quotes suggests that the main forms of "money" consisted of articles such as cloth, tokens such as iron bars, and foreign coins. "Indigenous currency systems emerged as well among groups such as the Kissi and Mende, in the form of locally made cloth, for example."
[1]
"[F]rom 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."
[2]
[1]: (Fyle and Foray 2006: xxxii) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM. [2]: (Mew 2016: 199-201) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/U3D2FQIH/collection. |
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Gold; silver; copper. “Significantly, the two great rulers of the Sharifian dynasties, Mawlay Ahmad al-Mansur the Sa’di and Mawlay Isma’il the ’Alawi, were both passionately interested in the Sahara and the Sudan. Both imported gold and slaves from the Sudan. But, whereas Mawlay Ahmad was closely associated with the quest for gold, Mawlay Isma’il was concerned mainly with slaves. Their exploits illustrate the economic and political significance of trans-Saharan contacts for Morocco… Moroccan officials who returned from the Sudan brought many camel loads of gold with them. An English merchant, resident in Marrakesh, commented on the arrival of thirty mules laden with gold in 1594 : ’ The king of Morocco is like to be the greatest prince in the world for money, if he keeps this country [the Sudan].’2 Yet, in 1638 another English observer remarked: ’The ancient supply [of gold] from Gago [Gao] which was brought in by cafells [caravans] in Ahmad’s days, grandfather of this king, is now lost by the troubles of the state’.”
[1]
“Immediately after acceding to power, Mulay Ismacil had given the king’s representative an undertaking to require the corsairs to respect French vessels, to grant ‘the faculty of exporting from his country local merchandise of every kind, which his late brother had forbidden, notably copper and brass’…”
[2]
“Historian ‘Abd al-Karim ar-Rifi (fl. 1740–1786) reported that in 1645, this emerging ‘Alawi leader attacked key areas across the southern trade routes such as Tikurarin and Tuwat and required their inhabitants to pay tribute. In this way he amassed a fortune in gold, silver, and slaves.”
[3]
[1]: (Fage and Oliver 1975: 150-151) Fage, J. D. and Oliver, Roland Anthony. 1975. eds., The Cambridge History of Africa: Volume 4, from c. 1600 to c. 1790. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/Z6BCU87M [2]: (Julien 1970: 255) Julien, Charles-Andre. 1970. History of North Africa: Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, From the Arab Conquest to 1830, ed. R Le Tourneau and C.C. Stewart, trans. John Petrie. New York; Washington: Praeger Publishers. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZJVWWN24 [3]: (El Hamel 2014: 157) El Hamel, Chouki. 2014. Black Morocco: A History of Slavery, Race, and Islam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T9JFH8AS |
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The following suggests that the main items of currency were kola nuts, blue cloths, iron, wire, red coral, salt, glassware, wine, aguardiente. "[T]wo documents can in fact shed a great deal of light on the history of Kaabu. Both date from towards the end of the 17th century[...]. The first document is a list of the trade of the Portuguese and the important ports of the region between the Casamance river and Sierra Leone. [...] The author, Governor Rodrigo de Oliveira da Fonseca, states: ’In the Geba river it is possible to navigate almost forty leagues upstream in small boats; halfway up is the settlement of whites which has three hundred Christians including men, women and children; in all this inland interior there are a great number of blacks of diverse nations, all of them have come across the whites and cultivate cotton and many other crops which they sell to the whites together with many slaves and much ivory and wax and some gold and white cloths which the blacks bring from a long way inland and they exchange it for kola nuts which there is the best currency for exchange [genero]… and other good currencies in this whole region are blue cloths and iron and wire and fine red coral and salt…and aguardente is also well received”. [...] According to Castanho, the main items of exchange were kola nuts, followed by salt, glassware, and then items such as wine and aguardente.
[1]
[1]: (Green 2009: 103) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/V2GTBN8A/collection. |
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The following quotes suggests that the main forms of "money" consisted of articles such as cloth, tokens such as iron bars, and foreign coins. "Indigenous currency systems emerged as well among groups such as the Kissi and Mende, in the form of locally made cloth, for example."
[1]
"[F]rom 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."
[2]
[1]: (Fyle and Foray 2006: xxxii) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM. [2]: (Mew 2016: 199-201) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/U3D2FQIH/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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"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 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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There is evidence of gold, silver and copper works at the capital of Artaxiasata.
[1]
. Silver vases have been found in graves.
[2]
Copper coins were minted in copper.
[3]
[1]: Redgate 2000: 85. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/4RQ68NKA [2]: Hovannisian 2004: 52. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/8B4DBDFU [3]: Hovannisian 2004: 54. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/8B4DBDFU |
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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 precious metals 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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“The Huns did not use spurs either but urged their horses on with whips; whip handles have been found in tombs. Gold and silver saddle ornaments discovered in tombs make it certain that some wealthy men rode on wooden saddles with wooden bows at front and rear to support the rider.”
[1]
“In 435 a Roman embassy, led by a Gothic soldier and a Roman diplomat – a typical division of labour at that time - met Attila at Margus (on the Danube just east of modern Belgrade). The negotiations took place on horseback outside the city walls. For the Huns, it was natural to do business without dismounting; the Romans, however, would have much preferred to have got off their horses and relaxed their aching limbs, but to save face they too remained on horseback. Attila’s demands were not for territory but for money payments. Eventually it was agreed that the Romans would pay him the vast sum of 700 pounds of gold per year.”
[2]
“The Huns honored Attila in death as in life. His body, draped in rare oriental silks, glittered with magnificent jewelry, costly gifts from Roman emperors hoping to buy off an enemy whom they had repeatedly failed to defeat. On his shoulder gleamed a great golden brooch set with a single slice of onyx the size of a man’s palm… That night, far beyond the frontiers of the Roman empire, Attila was buried. His body was encased in three coffins: the innermost covered in gold, a second in silver, and a third in iron. The gold and silver symbolized the plunder that Attila had seized, while the harsh gray iron recalled his victories in war. The tomb was filled with the weapons of enemies defeated in battle, precious jewels, and other treasures. The servants responsible for preparing the burial were killed so that they could not reveal its location.”
[3]
[1]: (Kennedy 2002: 30) Kennedy, Hugh. 2002. Mongols, Huns and Vikings: Nomads at War. London: Cassell. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZN9N624X [2]: (Kennedy 2002: 38) Kennedy, Hugh. 2002. Mongols, Huns and Vikings: Nomads at War. London: Cassell. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZN9N624X [3]: (Kelly 2009: 6) Kelly, Christopher. 2009. The End of Empire: Attila the Hun and the Fall of Rome. London; New York: W. W. Norton & Company. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/NCDATP6U |
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Gold; silver; copper. “The economy was closely organized around the extraction and exportation of precious metals, particularly silver, coming mostly from a few mining centers (reales mineros) in Pachuca (Real del Monte), Zacatecas, Guanajuato, and San Luis Potosí (Catorce). Production of gold and other minerals (excluding quarries) was much less relevant.”
[1]
“Indeed, after its drastic collapse during the years of the struggle for independence and its aftermath, many decades went by before mining activity gradually began to attract new investments. By the 1860s these investments, by local entrepreneurs, led to the discovery of new, rich deposits of precious metals and thus helped to boost mining activity once again. The recovery of silver mining, in particular, helped to put an end to the liquidity crisis and the credit crunch that had so adversely affected Mexican businesses for many years since independence.”
[2]
“From 1877 to 1911, exports multiplied more than sixfold (and imports grew by nearly 3.5 times) (Rosenzweig, 1965). During this time the export basket became more diversified, as shown by the decline in the share of minerals and metals in total exports and the corresponding rise of agricultural goods (see table 3.3). Moreover, though not shown in the table, the export of the minerals and metals now included, besides silver, metals such as copper, lead, and zinc, whose demand from the industrial centers of the world economy was expanding rapidly.”
[3]
[1]: (Moreno-Brid and Ros 2009: 20) Moreno-Brid, Juan Carlos and Ros, Jaime. 2009. Development and Growth in the Mexican Economy: A Historical Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/PZXKGTTV [2]: (Moreno-Brid and Ros 2009: 38) Moreno-Brid, Juan Carlos and Ros, Jaime. 2009. Development and Growth in the Mexican Economy: A Historical Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/PZXKGTTV [3]: (Moreno-Brid and Ros 2009: 58) Moreno-Brid, Juan Carlos and Ros, Jaime. 2009. Development and Growth in the Mexican Economy: A Historical Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/PZXKGTTV |
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Gold; silver; copper. “Mining of and trade in precious and other metals played an important role in the economics of the Bohemian crown lands. While gold lodes and alluvial deposits of gold did not return especially large profits, the Bohemian lands became one of the greatest powers in the mining of silver... Since the profit from the mining of precious metals and minting of coins was one of the ruler’s rights, the coffers of the Luxemburgs were enriched, enabling them to finance their policies, both at home and abroad, as well as undertake new construction work and cultural enterprises. Although the value of the Czech groschen fell with the lower silver content throughout the 14th century (gradually half of what it originally was), this specie remained in demand in all neighbouring countries as late as the Hussite period. On the reverse of the Czech groschen a number of German towns impressed their mark as evidence of its high quality. However, the affluence of the Czech state was increased by the mining of other metals, and pewter, copper and lead – partly the by-products of silver mining – were exported to the German lands.”
[1]
“The ‘Black Death’ did not affect the Bohemian crownlands as it did the rest of Europe between 1347 and 1352, but this was because the Bohemian crownlands lay outside the main European trading routes… Bohemian artisan products had no demand abroad, so exports consisted of raw materials, Prague silver coins, or silver ingots.”
[2]
[1]: (Pánek and Oldřich 2009: 144-146) Pánek, Jaroslav and Oldřich, Tůma. 2009. A History of the Czech Lands. University of Chicago Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/4NAX9KBJ [2]: (Agnew 2004: 37) Agnew, Hugh LeCaine. 2004. The Czechs and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. California: Hoover Institution Press. http://archive.org/details/czechslandsofboh0000agne. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/6LBQ5ARI |
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Gold, silver, copper.
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Gold; copper. Two large residential structures at the Putuni platform held artefacts with precious metals: “These included chert and obsidian projectile points and elaborate items of adornment, including beads of lapis lazuli, bone, sodalite, and obsidian, copper pins and labrettes, carved shell, gold lamina, and a wrought silver tube filled with blue pigment. The abundance of exotic prestige goods mirrored the remarkable array of elaborate goods included as offerings in six human dedications placed under the edifice upon its construction. One of them (Feature 38), an adult female, yielded a necklace of bone, shell, and a variety of exotic minerals, a copper disc mirror, a lead flask, abundant obsidian flakes, and a hammered gold pectoral depicting an impassive deity face.”
[1]
[1]: (Janusek 2004: 209) Janusek, John Wayne. 2004. Identity and Power in the Ancient Andes: Tiwanaku Cities Through Time. New York: Routledge. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/SDDCMA8P |
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Gold, silver, copper.
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Gold; silver. “As their parliamentary influence implies, the Merchant Adventurers were fabulously wealthy and powerful, the greatest of them rivaling important nobles in these respects. No government could afford to offend or ignore them, for their loans, their ships, and their ability to move goods might come in very handy in time of war. They dominated the corporation and city government of big port cities: between 1550 and 1580 nearly every lord mayor of London was a Merchant Adventurer. These men lived in great multi-story, multi-chimneyed houses, their rooms decorated with molded plaster ceilings, expensive tapestries, and ornate carved furniture, their presses brimming with gold and silver plate, their closets bulging with expensive gowns lined with velvet and fur.”
[1]
[1]: (Bucholz et al 2013: 201) Bucholz, Robert, Newton Key, and R.O. Bucholz. 2013. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=1166775. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XQGJH96U |
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Silver; copper. “One reason Tyrol was so valuable to the house was that the ruler’s regalian rights over the mines supplied a substantial income with no need to get the estates’ consent. The actual income from those mines was still never enough to pay all of Maximilian’s expenses. Though his revenues compared favorably with those of the French and Castilian monarchs, he was always short of funds. The mines, therefore, became even more valuable as collateral for loans. Maximilian began the dynasty’s long relationship with the Fugger family of bankers, who attached themselves to the Habsburgs like a parasite to a host. Maximilian essentially gave the Fuggers control over Tyrol’s copper and silver mines. Of revenues from those mines, 50 percent would go to the Fuggers, 18 percent to Maximilian, and 32 percent to the mining contractor.”
[1]
[1]: (Curtis 2013: 71) Curtis, Benjamin. 2013. The Habsburgs: The History of a Dynasty. London; New York: Bloomsbury. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TRKUBP92 |
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“[T]he Five Dynasties[…] period saw extensive internecine warfare that brought copper mining to a near standstill in the north. Because copper was becoming more and more scarce, almost all the contending warlords of the time attempted to prevent bronze coinage from flowing into their rivals’ hands as a result of cross-border trade. Their respective kingdoms—Southern Han, Min, Wu Yue, Southern Tang, Chu, Later Tang, Later Shu—cast heavily debased or token coinage from lead, iron, or even clay so that it could be used domestically, for example, to pay soldiers’ salaries. These coins were, of course, of very little intrinsic value, and ipso facto constitute the first step toward ridding Chinese currency of its metallic anchorage.”
[1]
[1]: (Horesh 2013: 375-376) Horesh, N. 2013. ‘CANNOT BE FED ON WHEN STARVING’: AN ANALYSIS OF THE ECONOMIC THOUGHT SURROUNDING CHINA’S EARLIER USE OF PAPER MONEY. Journal of the History of Economic Thought 35(3): 373-395. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/6PGHSGRX/library |
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Gold; silver; copper. “Important for the financial structure of all Habsburg lands was the mining of ores, primarily silver and copper. The mines of the Erzgebirge in northwestern Bohemia, in Central and southern Bohemia, in the High and Low Tatra of Hungary in present-day Slovakia, and at an earlier time in Tyrol played an important role. Gold-mining, as for instance in Rauris (Salzburg), was never of major significance.”
[1]
“Finally, in early March 1878, a deal was reached and the Abgeordnetenhaus passed the new tariff rates with 145 to 60 votes. The final tariff provisions included modest increases in thirty-seven industrial categories, along with across-the-board increases in the rates for textiles, and payments were now required on the basis of gold rather than silver, which had the effect of increasing the value of the rates by 15%.”
[2]
[1]: (Kann 1974: 120) Kann, Robert A. 1974. A History of the Habsburg Empire 1526-1918. Los Angeles: University of California Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/RP3JD4UV [2]: (Boyer 2022: 176) Boyer, John W. 2022. Austria, 1867–1955. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/CG3P4KKD |
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