Track 27

Track 27.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Today, the next in our series of lectures on the development of currency, we are going to focus on how and why there was such growth in ancient trade and commerce: the arrival of a physical, portable means of payment.

I’m going to give you a brief overview of what type of currency was first used, and describe how it developed later in the form of coins.

Now, going back thousands of years, you might imagine that precious stones were the first form of currency, but these were not found in sufficient numbers at that time.

We do though have firm evidence of sea shells being used as a primitive form of money.

They were very much valued items at the time, and were perfect for trade.

They were taken in vast quantities along the great trade routes, and I’m sure you can imagine how significantly they enabled these civilisations to grow as a result.

For now, let’s move on to a time when we first find precious metals and minerals being used in the form of coins.

Now, there’s some debate as to when and where this happened, but it seems to have taken place at some point around the 7th century BC in and around Greece and the Middle East.

In the past, archaeologists believed that the first coins were made from pure gold, or artificial mixtures or alloys, but we can now be sure that they were actually produced from a substance known as electrum, an alloy that occurs naturally, and is a blend of gold and silver.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away to the east, the Chinese appear to have had the same idea at the same time.

While those in Greece and the Middle East were busy forging coins from electrum, their contemporaries in China had the same idea of creating coins to use as currency, but with a completely different manufacturing process.

For years prior to this, the Chinese had used paper money made from white deerskin, but now they turned to casts and moulds, into which they poured liquid bronze and left it to set, eventually forming coins.

If we were to look at examples of these coins, we would see that there was some variety in their shape, some looked like little spades, but the vast majority resembled knife blades.

There is intricate decoration on each surface, demonstrating magnificent workmanship.