Posted By admin on August 18, 2008

Copper Gold Pre

What was used for pre-coinage currency around 1200-1300BC around Ancient Greece, Crete etc.?

From what I've read, the people at the time used a single ox as a basis for currency,
producing ingots in the shape of an ox hide of copper or gold to represent the value of an ox,
(23.5 grams of copper or 8.5 grams of gold).

Presumably there must of have been other denominations, to represent smaller or maybe bigger amounts and I would like to know what they were. Half an ox? A quarter ox? A sheep? A goat?
Can anyone please advise what other denominations there may have been at that time?

In particular I'm interested in how day to day transactions were carried out with this money; I'm wondering if 8.5 grams of gold, today worth about 255 US dollars, would represent an equivalent amount of money then.

In the pre-currency age people simply exchanged merchandise for merchandise. For example, if a baker wanted two bottles of milk he and the farmer would have to agree upon how many loaves were equivalent to one bottle of milk in lieu of a means of equal value.

Commodities that were highly sought after were often normalised and accepted by a group of people to function in the same way as a currency would. The agreed commodities would circulate as an element of trade, so that individuals could purchase other products that were valued in terms of these particular items. Examples include: coffee, salt, sugar, tobacco, cloth, cocoa, and livestock.

However, the inconvenience involved - trading with others who did not share the same standardised commodity, transporting it and the short shelf life of fresh foods - saw the need for a coinage system as a medium of exchange.

The first coins resembling those of today, are said to have appeared around the 7th Century BC. The coins were made out of round shapes of metal in Anatolia in what is now the west coast of Turkey. Over the course of time coins begun to incorporate impressions and designs that represented the cultural groups that used them. When major economies began to develop, gold, silver, copper, and other metals were used to make coins.

Turko-Afghan period Scholars agree that scarcity of gold and silver and consequent scarcity in metallic currency that characterised the Pala and Sena period, persisted till the coming of the Husain Shahi rulers. The gold and silver hungry period of the Palas and Senas may rationally be attributed to the decline of foreign trade and consequent decline in the import of gold and silver by way of favourable balance of payment. There was no gold and silver mining in Bengal. Therefore, whatever gold and silver Bengal had possessed at a particular time came through favourable balance of payment in foreign trade. In a state of weak economy and weak metallic currency system, cowries became the most dominant mode of exchange. Bartering mode was equally strong.

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