History of Money and the evolution in the history - By: Lia Contesso

The history of money is old and interesting and has thousands of years and a lot of funny stories to tell, the numismatic is the science that studies the evolution of the money and coins in the history, from its birth. In the history different kind of items were used as money in order to buy and trade, coins were composed not only of precious metals but also they can be other objects without value like shells, beads and barley.

In the beginnings money has a ‘real’ value, like pieces of gold or silver. The introduction and development of money appeared in the Sumerian civilization and then with the Babylonians that was the first real economic system with specific rules and with the birth of private propriety. In particular thanks to the famous document of the Code of Hammurabi, an ancient code created ca. 1760 BC, we can know the role of money in ancient times in civil society. In the history money changed shapes, materials and ‘design’, the first stamped money with a picture and words , is the electrum starter (a particular kind of alloy), coined in the Aegina Island (Greece) in the 700 BC. The art of coinage was introduced in the Ionia and Greece during the 6th century BC, in the 5th century BC the Athenians Empire exported the silver coinage and quickly monetary gold spread from the Asia Minor to the entire world.

This system required a particular mathematical calculation in order to count the alloy and the presence of gold, then the concept of standard coinage was introduced, and coins were usually minted by governments in a carefully process with the pictures and images that guaranteed the value of the metal. Usually the alloy was composed of silver and gold but also other metals could be used, an example was Sparta that minted coins from iron, for a particular economic reason: discourage citizens from trading in foreign cities.
In the ancient times money and coins was sometimes a problem: in fact the co-existence of gold, silver and copper in Europe in the middle age, created few problems in the European trades (English and Spanish traders preferred more gold coins than silver coins, and so there were a preference for this kind of coins and of course for gold).

We have to wait the national Bank to have more stability and its system allowed guaranteeing the change of money into gold at a fixed rate. Money has a real commodity and is nowadays a symbol for exchange and trade. Today banknotes has the predominance in our society and the virtual use of money is more and more common, is in this century an important step, we can think about the importance of internet in order to buy and sell items, a new trend with no crisis.

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This article was written by Elena Tondello, with support from fast loans.
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