I love articles that answer those pesky doubts about how I handle some aspect of ancient life in my fiction. One such question is how my characters can pay for things–a room at an inn, an onion in the marketplace, or a bride. The bride is actually pretty easy to answer because land, jewelry, flocks, etc are mentioned as bride price items. The large scale exchanges are easy enough to envision. But how does Tesha pay for those onions I show her buying from a stall in the market square in Priestess of Ishana? She isn’t carrying a pocket full of coinage. It hadn’t been invented yet. So what is the story with early money?
The Earliest Way to Pay
Somewhere along my research journey, I came to a vague conclusion that loose bits of silver served as the small purchase exchange medium, and it turns out I was correct. Now an expert has written a clear, quick article on the invention of money, including the pre-money stage, in Ancient Near East Today, “The Rise of Silver Coinage in the Ancient Mediterranean.”
Indeed, people in the ancient Near East, Egypt, Hittite Empire, and the Levant used small bits of silver of variable consistency, cut up from jewelry or production debris, or whatever. Therefore archaeologists refer to it as hacksilber. So when my character Marak reaches into the pouch at his belt and hands some silver to his fellow soldier to pay for the inn where he’s supposed to arrange rooms, he was behaving with historical accuracy. Nice to be reassured because sometimes I’m not sure from where in the general absorption process I’ve formulated my details. I do not have one of those steel-trap brains that retains the where and whens of the information I collect. And I have a vivid imagination, so there’s always a chance I might have made up the “historical” detail. When writing the fullness of life about a period that is only spottily preserved, that is necessity.
So that settles the pre-money question of early money.
Early True Money
So who invented money? You remember the myth of Midas, he of the golden touch? Not him, but people who lived in that same region many generations later.
The earliest coins were minted in Lydia around the end of the seventh century BCE dated by their find in a foundation deposit under the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos (the so-called ‘Artemision Hoard’).
ANET Dec 2021
Lydia was a kingdom in western Anatolia, modern Turkey. I like the appropriateness of this origin. The creators of “money” came legendarily from the mythic king who died because in his greed he wished for everything he touched to turn to gold. We’ve been similarly, metaphorically killing ourselves with this invention ever since. The Lydians created a coinage of mixed silver and gold (electrum). Previously, researchers thought the electrum came direct from the Pactolus River. However it turns out by analysis that the Lydians manufactured the mixture of gold to silver. (Photo at top shows Lydian electrum coins, Classical Numismatic Group, CCA license, wiki) As coinage spread across the Greek cities of Asia Minor, they turned to silver only. Gold was too valuable.
For the precise details of this early money, the metallurgy and other scientific and archaeological analysis, read the ANET article.
Review of excellent novel about King Croesus and the kingdom of Lydia, The Last King of Lydia by Tim Leach.