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First money
Money is a means of carrying out exchange relations, a universal equivalent. In ancient times, the role of money was played by various goods (skins of animals, grain, cattle), gradually it passed to noble metals (gold, silver), which best meet the requirements of payment for goods. The Russian word “money” itself goes back to the Turkic “denga” and denotes the weight measurement of objects among the Mongols and Turks. There was a lot of money during the period of the Mongol yoke in Rus’, for example, Dmitry Donskoy, Vasily the Dark, Nizhny Novgorod, Novgorod-Severskaya, Pskov, Rostov, Ryazan, Starodub, Tver, Yaroslavl, etc. These coins were often minted in two fonts – Old Russian and Arabic.
For example, the Latin word pecunia – money comes from pecus – cattle. In the poems of Homer (VIII – VII centuries BC), the bull appears as a measure of value. Golden armor, for example, cost 100 bulls. Cattle were counted by head, and the Latin word caput – head was the basis of the modern words “capital”, “capitalism”. The word “cattle” denoted the concepts of money, property, wealth. Similarly, they were designated by the Anglo-Saxons – sceat, ready – skatts, in the ancient German language – skat. In Rus’, “cattle” is not only domestic animals, but also property, wealth, money. However, cattle was not the only type of money, and along with it, a wide variety of items served as ancient money: furs, skins, fabrics, various utensils, shells, beads and other jewelry, salt, fish, tea and many other items. Among the various types of primitive money, the shells of a small mollusk, mined in the Indian and Western Pacific Oceans, were especially popular – kauri. From ancient times and in a number of places until the 20th century. they were used as ornaments and were a means of exchange among many peoples of Europe, Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands.
Furs were also very widely used as a general equivalent. This use of them in Ancient Rus’ is evidenced by some names of monetary units – kuna, veveritsa. In North America, furs were used as money as early as the beginning of the 18th century.
With the expansion of exchange to perform the function of a universal equivalent, a special commodity appeared, by its very nature most suitable for this purpose – noble metals. They very quickly forced out various types of non-metallic money from circulation. Initially, gold and silver were exchanged simply by weight in the form of bullion.
The transition from the use of money in the form of ingots of the most diverse form (bars, rods, rings, etc.) to minted coins was the result of an increase in production to a higher level, when exchange became vital for economically advanced countries and peoples.
Metal money practically did not deteriorate and could be stored as a treasure for an arbitrarily long time. In addition, having a large weight in a small volume, they greatly facilitated their transportation. Finally, they were easily divided into parts, turning into money of lesser value, which made it very easy to carry out small trading operations. In many countries, the circulation of various types of metallic money, primarily ingots, preceded the appearance of actual coins. In Greece, before the introduction of the coin, iron rods called obols were in circulation. Six rods made up a drachma (bundle, handful). Drachma subsequently became known as the ancient Greek silver coin. In ancient Italy, before the advent of coins, copper ingots served as money, in large numbers (about 300 kg) found in the healing sacred spring Aqua Apollinaris – Water of Apollo.
“Netherlands archaeologists, who studied the contents of many ancient treasures, came to the conclusion that bronze objects were used as the first money in Europe in the Early Bronze Age. The results of the study were published in the journal PLUS ONE.
© Photo: MHG Kuijpers Bronze strips, which served as the first money, from treasures in Central Europe
Scientists have long been trying to find out when the first money appeared and what it looked like.
One of the key features of money is its universality and standardization. Therefore, archaeologists are looking for large quantities of identical items in burials and treasures that could be used as currency.
Leiden University researchers Michael Kuijpers and Katalin Popa examined more than 5,000 artifacts from more than 100 Central European hoards dating back to the Bronze Age and assessed them for standardity.
The authors found that a number of bronze objects, in particular arcuate strips, bracelet rings and ax blades, were almost the same in many hoards – a person estimating their weight by eye would not notice the difference. Thus, the weight of 70 percent of the bronze strips found on the territory of modern Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland was about 195 grams.
Scientists believe that such items, completely standardized in shape and weight, played the role of the first money that circulated over a vast territory. The hypothesis is supported by the fact that archaeologists constantly find treasures containing many such homogeneous items.
In the southern part of Central Europe – in southern Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria – these are strips and rings, and in the north – in northeastern Germany and Poland – these are more axes. In central Germany, Bohemia and Moravia, all three types of objects are found.
In later finds dating back to the Middle Bronze Age in Europe, archaeologists often find, in addition to whole objects, their parts, both individually and fastened together, which, according to the authors, indicates the emergence of more accurate weighing tools and a more developed counting system involving fractional numbers.
“We hypothesize that the production of almost identical copies of rings, plates and ax blades and their use as commodity money led to a wider acceptance of weight standards and the emergence of a system of weights in Central Europe,” the authors of the article write.
At the end of the Bronze Age, artifacts made of gold appeared in the treasures, and the territory of distribution of standard bronze objects expanded to the north, to Scandinavia. Before that, they were present there only in single copies, in burials along with their alleged owners.
A metal hoop that was worn around the neck was called a neck hryvnia. It was made of iron, bronze, silver, less often of gold, known already in the Bronze Age. Later, among the Medes and Persians (Indo-Europeans of Iranian origin), noble men and women wore it. Among the Gauls (Indo-Europeans of Celtic origin), at first it was only a female adornment, then only a sign of the dignity of male leaders. Among the Romans (Indo-Europeans of Roman origin), the neck grivna (torques) served as an award awarded to legionnaires for military distinctions (honored soldiers had several hryvnias each). The neck torc was also part of the attire of noble men and women among the Scythians and Sarmatians (Indo-Europeans of Iranian origin) in the steppes of Eastern Europe, then spread among other peoples: among the Tissagets on the Kama, among the Sogdians and Khorezmians in Central Asia. In the Middle Ages, it had a similar meaning among the Western and Eastern Slavs (Indo-Europeans of Slavic origin), as well as among the Scandinavians and among a number of the Volga, Kama, Oka, and Baltic tribes. Russian combatants of the 10th-11th centuries. received a neck hryvnia as a reward. In the 12th-14th centuries. she served in Rus’ as a predominantly female adornment; it was also among the peasant women. Back in the 16th century. in Muscovite Rus’, it was part of the wedding attire of the nobility (both grooms and brides).
Neck grivna found in the Kursk region (Russia). 11th – 12th centuries Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., editor-in-chief B. A. Vvedensky, vol. 12, 1952, p. 597
The hryvnia is a silver ingot that served as a monetary and weight unit in Ancient Rus’. The weight hryvnia corresponded to one pound (96 spools – 409.512 g). The monetary hryvnia was called the hryvnia kun and corresponded to the 12th century. 96 spools