The Origins of Money, Considered from the Economic and Historical Point of View — 1897

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THE ORIGINS CURRENCY

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s ORIGINS CURRENCY CONSIDERED Al THE OlNT OF SEEN- ECONOMIC AND HISTORICAL BY Mr. Ernest BABELON CONSERVATEIK OF THE DEPARTEMEXT OF MEDALS AND ANTIOLT.S FROM THE THE NATIOXA LIBRARY ^'I:5CIETI to. T.ECTURJ Exemplary ràform* .^ PARIS FIRMIN-DIDOT BOOKSTORE AND It^ PRINTERS OF THE INSTITUTE, RUE JACOB, 56 1897

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PRE-RUOPOS Numismatics or the science of currencies kiss, in its meaning the [)Ius extended, the study of these monuments in all their aspects : she must the consider under the economic report mic, social or metrological , as well as multiple points of view of historical sciences : mythology, iconography, epigraphy, history of art, geography, chronology, etc. This is not not just one of the fundamental bases of archaeology, it is also one of the most fertile annals of evolution economical civilized societies. This branch of knowledge human lives, that superficial minds se- would be tempted to classify alongside entertainment entomology or botany, or even of the timbrolo£>ie , has a domain so vast, she

vm FOREWORD. presents to our investigations such a multiplicity of problems, that it is almost impossible to the one who engages in it with intelligence to cultivate it in its whole and from grab to the times all the demonstrations : each of us is forced, so as not to remain superficial, se specialize in one or other of the parts of a science which seems, })ar ello-mèm(>, already be a specialty restricted. It is undoubtedly because of this necessity that, in the works of numismatists, the questions economic and social issues that arise above all ancient or modern monetary series, are rare- addressed ; and likewise, among economists, we encounter few descriptions trail of the meuay, who ancestor poi' priiici[)e a (•(nuiassaïuc iippro- founded or simply serious medalists where are classified the monetary documents who for- the basis of their theoretical conceptions. In a word , and with eminent exceptions , he is true of say that in general, the numismatists se show especially archaeologists and historians, do not worrying hardly any economic laws of the currency, and that economists, leaving aside direct examination of monetary series, frequent

FOREWORD. ix hens scientific establishments known as name (the numismati(iues. I looked for, in this book, the fruit of many readings, to place myself to the time to point of view numismatics and from an economic point of view; I have tried , while restricting myself , on purpose , to generalities and questions of origin, to show the close link which unites these two sister sciences which, each, live too much they and seem to sulk; I have wanted, in a word, apply to origins and to the history of the first dcveh^ppe- ments of the currency in the civilizations an- ciennes , the economic laws formulated by in- duction in works of pure theory on the role of money in the formation of wealth social. If the currency, following the strong expression of an economist (1), “ exercises, as death, his empire over all humans » , this word applies not only to contemporary generations poraines, but also to deceased humanity, to the entire ticity. This book is therefore aimed at times, to those who study the present and to those who confine themselves to the past and look for children (1) Emile de Laveleye, the Mint and inter-bimetallism national., Introduction.

X FOREWORD. lords practical, to economists and to numismatists; by the done, he needs Tinclul- gence of some and of others, because it's especially when we want please to everything the world we risks not satisfying anyone. Seven or eight years ago , I had toyed with the project to open, at school practice of Higher Studies, a numismatics course , to continue the le- lessons so brilliantly professed on the same ma- thirds, close the National Library, by my regretted master and friend, Francis Lenormant. For this purpose, I had collected notes named bres intended to form the material of these con- ferences which, in my thoughts , should not what happened dress up, like most of the School's courses , than a stranger limited number of listeners. For reasons independent of me and that I do not have to remind here , this design could not come true and my note me remained between the hands. This are those of them who have relating to the eco- economics of the currency , to training and to first developments of the instrument and of through any trade, that I have seemed and that I pull today , in their giving a shape different of the one that they

FOREWORD. \i avjiicnl piimilivenient, i)for the adaptations to a le-c- liiic current and not more to a course presentation public. They will be followed shortly by a second volume formed from another chapter of these notes, and which will be titled : Mimisma metrology- ticjuc. The study of the weight systems of the world nae, especially at the Greeks, is so important, she brings a contingent if essential lightning- cisses to the history of commerce in the anti- fairness , it contributes in a way so direct to ranking and the allocation currencies they same, that it must be treated separately; we have therefore reserved for this volume a certain number of questions which could, if necessary, have found place in this one, because the story economical touches very closely on the history of commerce including money is the essential vehicle. The more large part of the present volume has formed the material of a series of articles who have published in Social Science, by Mr. Edmond De- mohns. It's above all, I have to say, reception flattering that this special and competent audience made them tent , who hired me to give to these items one link which connects them and welds them to each other very, to constitute the different parts of a

xi FOREWORD. same together. We wanted to find something interest in the method I used everywhere a rule : it is to seek, in the eco-facts contemporary economics, analogies with this which happened in antiquity, or better, from ta- expensive to shed light on the history of currency and its origins in light of the laws that govern the role economics of the instrument of exchange in the modern societies. But I hasten to do note that this method is not new, and that I ai found the principle in this wise words of the president of Brushes : “In general , he said , there is no has no method best for pierce the veils of antiquity, than to observe if it does not happen somewhere before our eyes something almost the same. » E. b. August 15 189fj.

THE ORIGINS CURRENCY BARGAIN AND THE FIRST STALLIONS OF VALUE I. THE PRINCIPLE NATURAL EXCHANGES. We could not conceive of a human society maine without the relationships cFécliang-e or com- goods that move, transport and distribute between the members of the social body all things which are necessary to satisfy needs of each. Following the beautiful comparison of Her- bert Spencer, commerce, in the organism of the society, plays the role of blood circulation- in the organism of any living body. Without him either necessary to involve any bond of solidarity darity or sympathy, only discarding, even momentarily, the state of hostility, two men free, brought together, will seek to exchange, with each other, the goods that each 1

2 THE ORIGINS OF L.V. CURRENCY. has too much against those who he misses. With the same spontaneous movement, the plowman and the winegrower will exchange the superabundance of their crops; the shepherd, the fisherman, the hunter, the ar- herbal tea, all, to the both producers and consumers producers, will do the same for their respective products. tifs. It is in the interest of course, as Economists were pleased to demonstrate this, who dictates and imposes this social law of exchanges, that is to say of commerce. Childhood of man, who res- seems in so many ways to the childhood of civilization tion, puts us every day under the eyes of the phe- analogous nomena : our more young people schoolchildren exchange balls or a image against a spinning top or colored pencil. Children and people children or, for better say, peoples simple, practice exchange in kind, the least form commercial relations (1). Exchange, buy, sell, trade, all in one word, are operations which necessarily suppose rely the estimation of what we exchange, of what whether we buy or what we sell. The lab- reur appreciates the quantity of his wheat, by weight or in volume, of which he consents to give up against the measure of the generous liquid that the winemaker gave him will deliver. Appreciate or evaluate what we exchange, it is counting it, weighing it, comparing it, measuring it rer, and who says measurement, says conventional unit. (1) See, for the development of these ideas, Herbert Spen- cer, Principles of sociolocjie, trans. Gazelles and Geràchel. t. H, p. 1 to 133.

THE OIUr.INES OF THE CURRENCY. 3 To appreciate any length, it is necessary that I compare it to another length that I take as type ; likewise, to appreciate a surface, capacity, weight. This measure type becomes the standard; if she is convenient, clear, to the scope of all, its use is spreading easy- ment and eliminates little by little, by a natural selection natural and spontaneous, other terms of communication parison who are considered less practical or <]yes are confusing. We design if\ways to measure all the objects that strike our senses. The first con- enumerate them, determine their number ; the second gives us the length or extent due under one dimension; by the third, we know about it the superticie; by the fourth, we appreciate the volume, if he is about of so- lides, and the capacity, if they are liquids; the cinema fifth provides us with its weight; the sixth finally determines the comparative value of objects, the in relation to each other, or in relation to a special object taken for general assessment type. Tel is the entire metric system, whose rudiments must be among the first inventions what was created the genius industrious man, because that they respond to the most greatest needs of any society. Continuing to place ourselves at the point of view natural, it will not be difficult for us to pull together the very principle of primitive standards that, from one universal consent, men adopted

4 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. to measure all things. The human body itself even, as already learnedly noted by the sophist Protagoras, at fifth century before our era, had spontaneously ofï'ert and put to the reach of everyone the species of measurements, less the last (1). To estimate the length or the width of a o]) any jet, gold size- dinary of Thomme adult, his finger, his hand, his arm, his two outstretched arms, his foot, Técar- normal movement of his legs while walking, such are the elements that nature put in its place layout and who became, in all the civilizations, the basis of the system of measures for lengths and areas : finger terms, thumb, cubit, brewed, foot, not, and others, found in all old systems of measurements, attest the truth of this theory. The two hands of man were the trays of the first balance, and the weights that an adult, average strength, can carry on his back, lift with both hands, or hold in one hand, guess- In practice, weight standards according to which all which weighs oneself was evaluated. Only measurement by equivalence, a role that fills put the currency in the advanced civilizations , does not find a natural prototype in the body human. It's commerce, that is to say the relationships (1) Protagoras, in Plato. T/ieaetète, p. 152,A ; nrâvtwv yyrr [Aâxwv (lExpov àvbpwTio;. Cf. J. Brandis, Das Miinz Mass und Ge- wichtswesen in Vorderasien,^. 3; — Fr. Hultsch, Griechische und rijinische Métrologie [2" ed., 1882), IntroJ., p. 1.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 5 hold from individual to individual, who created it and in have developed the use. I am a plowman; Peter, the shepherd buys me a bag of wheat and gives me paying one of his sheep ; this sheep is, for me, the equivalent of my bag of wheat. For a another bag of the same capacity, I will buy from Jean, the hunter, a fur that will seem worth to me also this sacrifice. So this measure of wheat, over- everything if I have a surplus of wheat, of- will come the ordinary basis of my calculations and my operations of traffic ; Peter and John will res- pectively the same reasoning for the movements tones and for furs. In this primitive state, the practice of exchanges must experience daily embarrassments. How much of measures of wheat are worth these cattle? How much of furs worth this piece of canvas? How much of my fish can I exchange for these le- gumes, against these products of the industry ri- sea waves? All very random questions and to which the response is very variable, depending on time, place, and a thousand circumstances occasion- elles. It must often happen to a man to have too much a certain commodity that he had summer good comfortable to exchange, but neighbors were even over-abundantly provided and had none no need ; therefore finding no buyer, he was forced to do without things that were his necessary, while maintaining his merchandise who does not he was of no utility direct and who

6 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. could deteriorate or even se destroy (1). These difficulties without cease reborn, these professionals problems daily agitated and debated brought this that there were far-sighted men pro- curate a commodity that was likely to be suitable to the greatest number of people, and to be, the case applicable, accumulated and retained, without running the risks of a deterioration sensitive or too much prompt. By tacit agreement and for the greatest convenience of each , the groups of individuals regulars to exchange, to trade together, adopted a particular commodity whose value, generally agreed, served compa-scale rative, of universal equivalent to the value of all the things they commonly had to barter between them. Every tribe, every people adopted for stallion and intermediate of exchanges, the merchandise the more generally wanted at him. because of its advantages, and that he could will hold, so to speak, always under his hand. Among pastoral peoples, everything was valued in oxen and in sheep; at the peoples fishermen, the fish, and among hunting peoples, the ovens rashes or animal skins filled the same office ; it was wheat, corn and barley among the farmers cultists; these were the utensils, weapons, the tripods , the pots or cauldrons at the warriors and metallurgists; bracelets and others objects of adornment, of shells even (1) Stanley Jevons, Money and the Véchanfjc mechanism, p. 2 and 3.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 7 of which the frivolous race of savages made an or- ment, had, at home, the privilege to serve of common measure to the evaluation of everything that could be the material of a traffic. Turgot applied to demonstrate that any merchandise whatever conch has the property of be able to measure and transmit the value (i) : the choice of this mar- standard-goods varies next the times and the places, but it is only dictated by questions of convenience and of ease of employment. We see here the first link which connects the question- monetary provision to the means and the mode of existence population tension. To grab her in her ve- good foundations, he is essential of him give, as a preamble, the careful study of the simple societies, and above all the observation of the means and mode of existence of these companies, since by them are necessarily influenced all the other social phenomena. Even in the questions current monetary conditions, this relationship is by- completely graspable and active, and it is not to be not be sufficiently realized, that eco- nomists experience such great difficulties to solve (2). II. THE BARGAIN the CONTEMPORARY era, The modern era, as well that antiquity (1) Targot, Values and currencies {Works of Turg, ol.l. I.p. 75). (2) See social science, mArsi8di (article by Mr. Léon Poin- sard;.

8 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. the most remote, is fertile in examples of the role monetary that can play some objects common, among simple peoples, even in more complicated countries that provide some production of special value, especially when these countries are still inhabited largely by a simple population. What travelers in the new countries take the most with them, these are not gold coins and money, but various products from European industry, ca- able to seduce the populations that they must visit and get them to give up the benefits in return natural productions of their country. We will, following them, take a quick tour of world, to raise only a few typical examples and curious about what I'm coming from to assert. We will take our route by the At- lantique. Had Iceland, where the main wealth of the indi- genes consists of fish dried, it's this mar- merchandise which forms the material ordinary of the born goce, and English or Danish traders has- chat at prices of the most varied objects. Here is how a edited, rendered between 1V13 and 1V26, and remained of long centuries in vigor, establishes the tax on various goods valued in fish dried : Twenty horseshoes are priced there. 20 sealed fish; A pair of women's shoes. . .3 dried fish; A pair of shoes leather 4 dried fish : A barrel of pure butter 12o dried fish;

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 9 Half a pound of tallow oh dry fish : A barrel of wine luo dried fish , elc. (1). We we we can easily imagine that of the same edicts were to be proclaimed and perhaps engraved on marble, in the cmporia frequented by the ships of the Phoenicians, Etruscans and Greeks, before the invention of metal money. In the Terre-Xeuve fisheries regulations from August 18 18'2.5 is still the fish that plays officially the role of currency : it is used to pay salaries and all the foodstuffs that the fishermen wish to obtain (2i. On the Alaskan peninsula, at Hudson Bay, as also among the Lapps and at the Estho- niens, beaver pelts and furs filled with feels the same office, and, in the language of these peoples of frozen regions, the same word, rûha, means both skin and currency (3n At the beginning of this century, the role of mon- common naie was devoted to sugar in the Mary- land, tobacco in the Virginia, balls of lead in the Massachusetts, with cocoa in the Mexico and Central America (i'. (1) Ridgeway, The origin of mctaUic currency and ice light standards, p. 19. (2) DnWoz. Jurisprudence (general. Directory, y^ Obligations. No. 1751. !3} P. \Shjniper, Travets in Alaska, p. 225: — Stanley Jevons. Money and the mechanism of exchange, p. 17. 4) Clavigero, History of Mexico, t. I.p. 386; — Prescolt, Con- quest of Mexico, t. I, p. 44. 1.

10 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. Indians in the United States and Canada use are going above all, as currency, a jewel called ivampunij manufactured with the help of two co- marine keels, white and purple, the buccimmi and the Venus mercatoria, which we collects in quantity on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Fragments of these shells, of a lustrous color, were cut into small cylinders of approximately 10 millimeters length of 8 in circumference, then, hollowed out and slipped into rosaries. In commerce, we the delivered to the measurement ; blacks or purples had double the value of whites (1). The wampum was considered legal tender, even after the arrival of Europeans, due to the absence of metal money ; the settlers of America from the North and Canada used it legally until 1670 ; then, the use persisted as a routine, in competition with metallic money, jus- only at 170V; the Redskins preferred it until around 1825. In its monetary role, the wampum was decried by the counterfeiting rather than by regulations legislative : European industrialists began to manufacture an overabundance of fakes wampumsen glass paste, and the discredit of which these objects, like real assignats, were well- early reached among the Indians themselves, resurfaces (1) Alexandre Vattemare, Collection of coins and medals of North America from 1052 a. 1858, offered to the Library than imperial. First part, Introd., p. 15 et seq.; — P.-N. Breton, Illustrated history of the coins and tokens of Canada, p. 10; — W. Ridgeway, The oricjin of metallic currency and weight standards, p. 14 et seq.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 11 without return on real shellfish. Alone, some tribes of the California retain in- core the use of the œampunis which they wear threaded like necklace earrings and which we designate under the name to'al-li-ko-chik (Indian currency), term borrowed to their language. The continent entire African practice under our eyes the primitive system of exchanges in na- ture, and examples abound in the stories travelers. Everywhere, there are individuals who barter, one with the other others, the products of their work; tribes who deliver the surplus of their wealth in return for this that they have of- ordered to other tribes, and this without the intermediary currency diary ; everywhere finally, it's a double current of caravans carrying and reporting fabrics, coffee, of gum, cotton, the i- even, precious woods, gold, salt, mes^ palm oil, pelts, objects manufactured, weapons, powder, drive- health of cattle or slaves. In Madagascar, whoever attends each week at the market of Antananarivo sees, not without astonishment, delve from long theories of merchants coming of all File points or returning to them, lour- duly responsible for the natural products of their country, or European goods such as beadwork, fake jewelry, ready-made clothing born, weapons and furniture. European currencies, when he go away meeting, are cut into mor- cels, like ingots of raw metal, and weights

12 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. in scales. In equatorial Africa where the lucrative trade of ivory attracts the more distant caravans, “ this product is exchanged against the monetary shells, the glassware, metals in wires or bars, the scarves of Eu- rope or America^ weapons and ammunition, all articles whose exchange course rule the tran- actions relating to foodstuffs (1)”. Ahisi, like America, Africa feeds rudimentary populations which use co- keels of their necklaces as an equivalent of any merchandise. Elsewhere, this are cakes salt; among pastoral peoples, it is the big one and the small livestock which is the standard of value (2). The tribes warriors, like the Dahomeans, em- bend weapons, especially flintlock rifles, to basis for evaluating foodstuffs, bazaar objects, clothes, slaves (3). If we move to Asia we see the tribes confined in the great steppe central do like the African nomads : they traffic in nature. Chinese trade has even introduced among the Mongolian Tartars use it, as shown nae, of brick tea, that is to say molded under this shape. We explains itself a seemed)le neck- tum, when we knows the hygienic role^ of tea in the regions of North and the quality often (1) A. de Préville, African Societies, p. 183; —Ridgeway, op. cit., p. 43. (2) A. de Préville, op. cit., p. 262. (3) Ibid., p. 322, drowns.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 13 bad waters of the steppe, who need to be rectified (1 '. In China, in Kashgaria and even in India and in Japan, we have long used, as a sign of exchange, like among the savages of Africa and America, white shellfish exported especially from the Maldives and Laccadive Islands, and generally commonly referred to as cowries (the cyprva inoneta of naturalists). This primitive use of cowries, as a means exchange, has left of traces in the Chinese language, where, the sinologists (2), the character pei, “shell “, is remained the radical of all the words which are related to ideas of wealth, buying or selling. In Korea, the commodity the more usual, the rice, has long served as currency ; we sub- titled sometimes the beans and the canvas hemp. In 1357, Mr. Courant tells us, according to a handwritten Korean, we decided to affix a seal on the parts of canvas for their give course legal : it was web money (3). In the most big part of Annam, the transactions are currently still carried out in paddy : (1) Hue. Vognrjeen Tartary and JAiôfi^, passim. (2) Ed. B\o\, ^[memory on the monetary system of the CJiuiois , p. G. On the use of cowries as currency, see the memoir of Klaprolh, in the Asian Journal, 2" series, t. XIII, 1834, p. 146 et seq. ; — W. Ridgeway, The origin of metallic currency, p. 13 et seq. and p. 21 ; — E. de Villaret, in the Revue numisma- tick, 1892. p. 129. (3) Maurice Courant, in the Asian Journal, t. II from 1893, p. 270 et seq.

14 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. we barter paddy for tobacco, paper, fabrics (1). Among the Bahnars of Indo-Ghine, we point out uses that we will find identical ticks in Homeric Greece : payments in oxen, in cauldrons, in small axes. “The Bahnars of Indo-China, said Mr. E, Navelle, in are still at barter and to the exchange and they don't have no money properly said. They own only certain objects of exchange which, being more frequently used or of lesser value variable that the others, can be considered as doing the currency office in their home... A head^ that is to say a male slave, worth, according to his strength, sound age, ability, etc., five, six or seven buffaloes, or the same number of pots. The buffalo and the pot have the same value, which varies naturally with the size or age of the animal, with the size and quality of the mark- moth. A buffalo adult or a large pot worth seven glazed stoneware earthenware jars, the shape of Chinese jars and the capacity of ten to fifteen liters. The jar worth four miik, name of account currency worth ten mat , that is to say ten of these pickaxes that the forge Cédans and that all the savages of these countries take used as agricultural implements. The ;««/estla smallest value used among the Bahnars (2), » (1) And. Ayninier, Sotes on Annam, in the CochincJiine French. Excursion e(recognitions , fascic. X, 1885, p. 239. (2)E. Navelle, in the Cochincliine French. Excursions and recognitions fac. XIII, 1887, p. 296-297.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 15 The inhabitants of one of the cities the most com- merchants from Laos, Sting'-Trêng, transport to Cambodia rice, of wax, skins, nettle from China, cardamom, and they bring back some salt, dishes, fabrics, without the mon- nay metallic has most often to intervene in this real barter (1). Other times, this are cattle which serve as payment. Mr. Aymo- nier met an Annamite slave in Laos who had was sold to price of seven buffaloes (2). A white elephant, male, i cubits high, with defenses by a cubit , cost king of Bassak. three ordinary male elephants, two females and seven slave men, without count a lot other menus items (3). Thus, today even, in these country primitives, the pure barter and simple persists next of the use of ingots metal, and even to side of the real currency imported by immigrants more advanced in material culture. In Europe, he just go back to the origins of modern times for find again of examples of the same order of facts. The populations who inhabited Russia during the Middle Ages were particularly rich in cattle, in furs, in canvas and in wheat, that they exported to Germany, or to the Muslim East man , receiving in exchange the manufactured products (1) And. Ayionier, Youcuje in Laos, p. 22 and 32. (2) Ibid., p. 43. (3) lbi(L, p. ol.

16 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. cured of these countries. “The necessity of trade of detail forced the Russians to use animal skins martens and squirrels or sables and her- mines, instead of current currency; spoke, these furs acquired a rate fixed and a value comparison between they, and were used to pay the various objects that we bought. As a result of the extension sion and the vigor that he acquired later the com- merce, the embarrassment attached to the exchange of a number rarity so voluminous and so perishable was done quickly feel, and gave the idea of cutting small pieces of these skins, or small pieces of leather, on which we affixed brands (1). » Everything to the time, we observed in Korea a use identical applied to pieces of canvas of hemp . The wheat, barley, oats, corn have summer, at the agricultural peoples, the currency with which we se provided all the others things, also both in Europe and in Asia and in America (2); olive oil, finally, served as a means of exchange in certain markets from Europe oriental {3\ Among the Germans, still in eighth century of our era, or exchanged of land against of (1) Chdudoh, AperçK sni- Russian inonnaics, p. G; — E. Babe- lon. Of the trade of the Arabs in the Xnrd of Europe before the crusades, p. 47 and following. (2) Necker, in his famous work on the Administration of Finance, published in 1784, explains how, in the island of Corsica, tax was, at that time still, more easily perceived in wheat than in currency. • (.3) Stanley Jevons, The Mint, p. 22.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 17 horses, livestock, utensils or even cereals, concurrently with gold and money coined. It would be superfluous to develop our investigation to conclude that, on all points of the globe, the companies remained in a state of civilization little advanced or condemned to isolation by some certain circumstances, were used, not long ago , otherwise of our days, of goods various like equivalent and sign representative of the value of things. I even have said and showed that this practice maintains itself sometimes for a long time, despite the presence of peoples very advanced in civilization and events in the country. There is more : such uses, however rudimentary they may be to us appear at first glance, are commonly put in practice by ourselves, in trade maritime where the freight of ships must be insured at return as in Taller ; the process of bartering a good against another good avoids for the ship to make one of the two voyages to ges (l).Caravans African, these ships of the desert, c]who bring to the ports of the coast the natural productions from within, return are also loaded, not with gold coins, but (1) In London there is a joint stock company, the Company African barter, including operations consist exclusively to produce, on the west coast of Africa, manufactured products invoiced from Europe, against cotton, gum, coffee, ivory, the gold powder, spices and other natural products provided by indigenous. (Stanley Jevons, The Mint, p. 2.)

18 THE ORIGINS OF LA. CASH. goods that they have received from Euro- peans in exchange for those that they have delivered. mr. BARGAIN IN ANTIQUITY. Affirm the existence , in antiquity , necks tumes that we see spreading today, under our eyes, at of populations remained or fallout in childhood, it's express a truth recognized by once by all historians and all ancient philosophers. The jurisconsult Roman Julius Paulus expresses himself as he follows : c< The origin of Yachat and the sale dates back to barter. Initially, in fact, there was no currency. We didn't call such a thing marcJian- say, and such another, jjrix. But each, according to his needs and depending on the circumstances, bartered the things who he was useless against those who must have been useful to him, because it often happens that what one is missing too much... (1). » In questioning the monuments figurative or the literary texts, we will find that no ple of antiquity was unable, in the first phase of his existence, se subtract from this natural law real. (1) Julius Paulus, daus the Pandectes, lib. XVIII, 1 : Origo emendi vendendique a pennutationibus cœpit. Olim enim no eiat nummusj neque aliud merx, aliud pretium vocabaiur; sed unique , secundum necessitatem tcmporum ac lerum, utUibus inutilia permutabai, qiiando plerumquc evenil nt quod alteri superesi, alteri desit...

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 19 In Egypt, many bas-reliefs are painted tures, sometimes accompanied by explanatory inscriptions tives, show us the traffic per exchange in bazaars or markets, where fishermen, hunters sisters, plowmen and shepherds come to barter their products against fabrics, perfumes, bi- joy and others objects manufactured that of artisans expose complacently to their re- guards. iM. iMaspero, based on these documents, traces as it follows the picture of an Egyptian market yours : (( Traffic was mainly done through exchange. The buyers brought with them some product of their work, a new tool, shoes, a mat, pots of ointment or liquor, often also of ranks of cowries and one small box full of rings in copper, in silver, even in gold, the weight of a tahnu, that they proposed to barter for what they need. When it was a large animal or objects of considerable value, the debates lasted harsh and tumultuous : he had to agree not only on the quotation, but on the com- price position, and draw up, as an invoice, a real inventory where beds, canes, honey, oil, picks, pieces of ha- billement, appear as equivalents of a tau- water or of a an esse. The small trade of detail did not require as much calculations nor complicated. Two bourgeois se are arrested at even moment in front of a fellah who exposes of

20 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. onions and wheat in a basket. The first step does not have any working capital other than two necklaces in beads of glass or of earth multi-colored enameled ; the second brandishes a fan rounded with handle wood and one of these ventilated triangular tors of which the cooks help themselves for stir up the fire. “Here is a beautiful necklace that <( you will accept, secrete one, it's just what he “you need” ; and the other : “Here is a fan and a “ fan. » However, the fellah does not leaves in no way disconcerted by this double assault, and, proceeding methodically, grabs one of the necklaces in order to to examine it at leisure : “Let me see, let me do “ the price ", One asks too much, the other offers too much little : from concession to concession, they will end up agree and find the number of onions or the grain measurement that meets exactly to the value of necklace or fan. More far away, the customer wants to purchase perfume for a pair of sandals and praises his good in conscience : “Behold, he said, a pair of shoes solid. » But the merchant does not think of put on shoes at this moment lies, and claims a rank of cowries for his small pots : “This is who is delicious, when you “spreads a few drops,” he explains persuasive air. A woman pushes under the nose of a crouching character two jars which contain probably something ointment of his way : “ Here is who smells good enough to make you happy. » Behind this group, two men are debating the relative amenities of a bracelet and a package

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 21 hooks; a woman, box in hand, say- cute with a merchant of colhers; a other try to get a discount on the price of a pea her that we adorn in front of her... (1) ". If there are no paintings or bas-reliefs putting before our eyes, for Assyria and the Chal- dee, similar scenes, we we are none- less certain than the things happen passed from the same way. Private interest contracts, drawn up in cuneiform script, mention the sale of fields whose price is listed in miscellaneous items : silver bars valued by weight , donkeys , tau- reaux, carts, fabrics, etc. (2). Others docu- written statements relate, in Chaldea, exchanges of wheat against liquors and fruit, or dates versus wooden beams [S). He pa- realizes that even today, in the countries of Tigris basin and the Euphrates. simple barter is practiced; wheat commonly plays the role standard of value in commercial transactions relations between individuals; often even it serves to pay tax. Phoenician trade never wore in the same way as that of the simple barter. We see (1) G. Maspero, Hist. anc. peoples of the classical Orient. t. I, p. 323-324. (2) Oppert and Menant, Legal Documents of Assyria and Chaldea, p. 116 to 125 ; — Belser, Bahylonische Kudurru-lns- chriften, in the Beitruge zur Assyriologie, t. 11^ p. 124 to 127, 151 and 152. (3) Peiser, Babijlotiisc/ie Beitracje, pp. 76-79, 206, 207, 305 and 30G. — Cf. Maspero, op. cit., p. 749.

22 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. their navigators settling on the coasts of the mar- flying dolls, unpacking all kinds on the strike of goods, especially purple fabrics, of glassworks and of jewelry, reboarding in exchange the natural products delivered to them the indigenous, even doing, when they the can, as in Argos, slave raids (1). Ezekiel we thus represents the traffic of the Tyrians in the entire Mediterranean basin, in Egypt and in the land of Tharshish, as well as by caravan on the side of Damascus and Mesopotamia (2). The Carthaginians, too, did not hear trade differently. “ There are Libya, said Herodotus, a place beyond the Pillars of Her- cule, where men live with whom they work fiquent the Carthaginians. Hs disembark there their cargo, put it away on the beach, get back on their ship and make a big smoke. The indi- genes, looking like smoke , go to of the sea and, for the price of goods, they de- pose of For (to the natural state, of course) ; then they retreat far away. The Carthaginians re- come, examine, and if the gold seems to them the equi- worth of goods, they win and go away go. If there isn't enough, they return to their ship and remain in place. The naturals come closer sing and add gold, until what they the have satisfied; never, on either side, they don't (1) Herodotus, I, 1 ; E. Curtius, Greek History, t. I, p. 4i; — Fr. Lenormant, Coinage in antiquity, 1. 1, p. 124. (2) Ezekiel, xxvii, 3 et seq.

THE OUIOLNES OF THE CURRENCY. 23 commit of injustice : some do not touch to Tor before it matches the value of the merchants say; the others do not touch the cargo before we removed gold (1). » In Homeric Greece, where relationships so- cial areas are small, groups of families, if not even each family, seeks to be self-sufficient rely on themselves for the main needs of existence : men go to the hunting, the slaves cultivate the land or graze the livestock skins, the women weave the fabrics and sew the clothes. The division of labor limited to one small number people the barter of products of each person's activity. Eumaeus himself built hewn stones for the stable of his pigs (2), and Ulysses is his own cabinetmaker wedding bed (3), the carpenter of his ship (4). Nevertheless, each individual is forced to resort to professional sounds foreign to the restricted circle of his family for things whose production requires an or- complicated tillage or technical knowledge, such as weapons and metal utensils, terracotta vases, jewelry (5). From there, the birth cessation of trade and; of commerce. VIliad and VOdijssée allows us, on many occasions, to witness transactions similar to those we have (1) Herod., IV, 195. (2) Odyssey, XIV, 5 et seq. (3) Ibid., XXIII, around 189 and following. (4) Ibid., V, 228 et seq. (5) Helbig, the Epic Homeric, transl. Trawinsky, p. 18 and passitn.

24 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. narrated for the ancient Orient. Everywhere, this is the simple barter, with the use of the scale and of other measures, when establishing the equi- valence of the goods exchanged requires it. Under the walls of Troy, the Greeks buy wine which sent to them from Lemnos : some pay for it with copper or with iron, others with skins beef or live oxen ; he is even who give in exchange their female slaves (1). In V Odyssey, Eumaeus paints Ulysses a picture of trade Greeks with the phoenix merchants citizens : the black ship of the latter addresses Syra, responsible for junk (iJ.jp(' at^ùp\xy.~y., thousand trinkets), i.e. manufactured articles, gold and amber necklaces, beads and bi- joux. It remains wet in the waters of the island a whole year, until the traffickers Orientals have sold all their goods and received in exchange a large ({quantity of products natural ([i'icTcv r.zVrt) ; they even manage to lift one of the slaves king Ctesios and his son Eumaeus; finally, they only weigh anchor when the freight back is insured (2). IV. LIVESTOCK-CURRENCY. The more often, among the Greeks of ancient times mericas, the determination of the value of things (I) Iliad, VII, 472 et seq. i2) Odyssey, XV, 415 to 463.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 25 se made from oxen or cows. It is the cattle that serves as currency; the price and the prices are fixed in livestock , as among all simple peoples who lead a pastoral and agricultural life. A big tripod of bronze worth twelve oxen (1); we pay four oxen one woman knowing slave work well (2). Laertes delivers twenty oxen for own Eurycleia (3); the fringes golden the gide of Pallas worth hundred oxen (i) , and a hecatomb is also the price of the ransom of Ly- caon (5). Comparing the weapons of Glaucos to those by Diomedes, Homer tlit that the some were worth a hundred oxen, and the others, nine only (G). We exchange an ox against a cauldron (7). The parents who sell their girls at spouses, re- receive from these a certain number of heads of livestock, next cases, hence the Homeric expression that : T.xpfiv/zi a/.oi7iooiy.:, “ young people girls who bring back cows” (8). Following a tradition preserved by Pausanias. the house of Polydore, son of Alcamene, king of Sparta, was nicknamed 3cwvY;-:a, because she had been paid in oxen (9). Still towards the end of the seventh century, the laws of (1) liad, XXIII, 703. (2) Ibid., XXIII, 705. (3) Odyssey, I, 431 : iiy.o'iiooia. ô'sooxsv. (4) Iliad, VI, 449. (5) Ibid., XXI, 79. Hesychius defines : 'ExaTOfAooiù'.ov ixxTàv oowv T'.fjir,. (6) Iliad, VI, 236 : iv.y.z6i).oo\o:, svvsâSoio;. (7) Ibid., XXIII, 885. (8) Ibid., XVIII, 593. (9) Pausanias, III, 12, 3.

:>6 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. Dracon fix the price of fines or rewards : for have killed a wolf, we received an ox or a sheep as payment (1). In Delos, the prices offered are also counted in oxen to the winners in certain games in honor of Apollo (2). The custom of considering large livestock as along the value of all things, had become if universal among the Greeks and their analogues, that vestiges of it persisted long after the in- invention of metallic cash : it's of there, undoubtedly, that the oldest currencies of TEubée, of Phocis, Corcyra, of Italy central have for type a cow, an ox or a beef head. The word fiojc remained a term popular and conventional for designate the currency metallic, and at time of Aeschylus we said of a man whose silence had been bought at a price of money, that he had "a beef on the lan- gue ", 3:^0 ^~''- Y/voWc;/; (3); the word -/--po:, finally, has the double meaning of “livestock » and “ wealth » . The early history of all other peoples of the big Indo-European family is by- strewn with similar phenomena. This is how the Sanskrit word roupa, which means “herd”, formed the name of the monetary unit from India, (1) Pollux, Oiwm.. IX, 61; —Plut., Solon, 23. — Cf. IIuKsch, Grieckische ttnd romische Metrology, p. 16i. (2) Pollux, IX, 60; — W. Ridgeway, The Homeric Talent, p. 3. (3) Aeschyl., Arjamemnon, 36; — Theognis, vpis 815-816; — Pollux, IX, 60.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 27 the rupee [rupya). The leading role that plays the herd and the small cattle, in the books sa- creations of ancient India , is often doubled with monetary role and he attests that the riches , at time to which these writings bring us back, consisted especially in herds. Similarly, in ancient Persia, payments in oxen and sheep were constant at the origin gine; we have proof of this by the Zend Avesta, where they are still admitted, concurrently with the payments payments in hard cash. In the Vendidad, the sheep is rated 3 stirs or a stater ; an ox of lower quality is equal to 12 stirs; the beef of medium size worth 22 stirs; the beef of superior quality is worth 30. Everything can be afforded in heads of cattle. Doctor's fees, for example, are an ox, a donkey dairy, a cow milkmaid, a team of four che- vaux, a dairy mare, a dairy camel, a sheep, or even a simple piece of meat, next the quality of the person treated and healed, — for Resta, in her wisdom, does not admit remuneration for the doctor only if he renders his sick at the health (1). Among the first inhabitants of Italy, just as ment estimated himself and was paid in heads of livestock. In Rome, one ox was equivalent to ten sheep, from a- close Festus (2) ; the same author teaches us (l)J.Darinesteter,z;eZejK/^re5^rt,trad.nouv.,t.II,p.50,106etll6. {2)Fesli epit., p. 24. — Cf. Hultsch, Mctrolo(jicoruin Scriptorum reliquiae, t. II, p. 78.

28 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. that, for the crimes of little of importance , we paid for two sheep, while, in severe cases ves, the fine could be taken up to thirty oxen (1). As at the Greeks, a memory traditional of this usage has persisted very long- time in Rome, because the laws Aternia-Tarpeia and Menenia-Sestia , voted in 300 and 302 of Rome (454 and 452 BC), still fix, like those of Dracon, in oxen and sheep, the price of fines , concurrently with the estimate in coined metal (2), And Varro us said : Multa etiam nunc ex vetcrc itistituto bubus and ovibiis dictum (3). The herd and the small cattle being thus, at the origin, the main wealth and forming the standard of payment of goods, he came of there that the word pecus “ livestock ", formed the word jiecunia, who ends up applying exclusively to the currency metallic, when this last was sole employee in transactions (4). The peculat was a theft of herds before becoming (1) Oribiis diiabiis mtiUdbaattir upud anliquos inminorihns deliclis, ut in )naJ07-ibiis'XXX bobus,7iec hune v lira nv merum coccedebcit multitalio. (Festiepit., p. 202. — Cf. Hultsch, Metr. ScripL, II, 77.) (2) Festival f'pit., p. 237, el in Hultsch, Metr. Script-, II, 78; — Cicero, De repttbl., II, 35, 60 ; — Dionys. Halicarn. X, 50. — Cf. K. Samwer, Management romischen aelleren Miinzwesen, p. 14 (Vienna, 1883). (3) VaiTo, De re rusfica, II, 1, 9. (4) Pecus, a quo pecunia universa, quod in pecore pccu nia tum consistsbat pastoribus. (Varro, De linrj. lat., V, 95.) — E. Babelon, Descr. hist. and chron. coins of the Bepubl. ro- maine, Introduction, p. î.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 29 the concussion; the word “ nest egg » (peculiion) has meant a “ small herd » before to be sy- name of little silver treasure (1). It's still the habit of counting livestock by head, captain, who gave birth to the word “capital », term which designates exclusively, in our language, the cash wealth. In northern Europe and in Germany where pastoral and agricultural life persisted until the au- role of the Middle Ages, we have already noted that the Livestock served as cash. The laws of Barbarians fix the compositions and fines in heads of cattle as well as in coined metal. The word which means u herd » (in German Vieh), formed the Anglo-Saxon word fee, feoh, who has the meaning of <( remuneration, salary » ; we get closer likewise the word Schatz, “ treasure », from the word go- ethical skaits, which means to the time “treasure w and “herd ". In the old Ireland, the great collection ju- ridiculous known as Senchtts Mur we sign that originally we counted the payments by sêd, that is to say by horned animals, and by miach or bags of barley. A slave woman worth three cows; a man equivalent to seven slave women (2). {!) Peculatus fut-tumpi(blicum dici cœptus esta pecore, quia ab eo initium ejus frandis esse coepit... (Festus, p. 237.) — Cf. Hultsch, Metrolorj. Scriptorum reliquix, t. II, p. 78. ^2) D'Arboisde Jubainville, Celtic literature course, t. VII, p. 89 et seq. — See pp. 106 and 335; the same, in the Revue ar- citcolofjique, 3' ser., t. XII (1888), p. 129-131. 2.

30 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. Among the Ossetians of the Caucasus, beef is still now the unit of value; value; everything is timed one, two, three or four cows, or ten times, a hundred times the value of a cow. Beef is worth two cows and the cow is worth ten sheep, in Georgia as in Rome in the past (1). Finally, in all the countries Asian and Africans where they live in abundance the buffalo or beef, these animals are used as sta- length of value of things. They play this role in Indo-China and southern Siberia too although among the Hottentots and the Zouious (2). He is the same in Abyssinia where, as in Rome, the taxes and fines are fixed in oxen and in cows by judges and tribal chiefs. The same use was again reported by travelers gers at the Madis of center of Africa, in Darfur and Wadai (3). He goes be interesting, in the presence of gravity dation that Science social established between the various natures of work, to see, just now, how the use of ingots and utensils metallic is substituted to the one of heads of (1) Haxthausen, Tianskuukasia, t. II, p. 30; — Ridf^eway, Tlie Origin, p. 30; — V. Langlois, Georgian History, p. II. (2) Ridgeway, The origin, p. 43 ; — And. Ayinonier, Travel in Laos, p. 43. (3) Ridgeway, op quote.., p. 4i. — Cf. Mohammed ibn Omar el Tounsy, Journey to Darfur, trans. franc, by Perron (Paris, 1845), p. 218 and 315; — the same^ Journey to Ouadai, p. 559.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 31 livestock, to play the role of currency, when these different peoples, of pastoral and agricultural origin, rose to the practice of mining industries and metallurgical.

II METAL INGOTS AND UTENSILS EMPLOYED AS CURRENCY I. CHARACTERS OF STANDARDS METALLIC NO COINTED. We observed, in the previous chapter, that at simple peoples, the choice of the mar- standard-goods varies depending on location and mode of existence, and that it is only dictated by con- considerations of convenience and ease of use. This principle that observation we has revealed , receives, with no less rigor, its application at the companies who have crossed the first degrees of the material culture, and within the- what the division of work has already brought the constitution of different trades. From that, alongside pastoral life and agricultural, the in- dustry had developed sufficiently for us to knew work metals and the use in 1^ manufacturing of utensils , of instruments of plowing, weapons and ornaments varied, we

34 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. noticed well quickly the advantages which offered these metals, worked or not, as intermediaries transactions, and their convenience as mar- standard commodity. Three essential elements conspired to push primitive people to prefer metals to everything other type of values. This are : the necessities foreign trade, intrinsic qualities metals, and finally, the services they are su- likely to return to each individual, under a thousand shapes varied. Of tribes pastorals trading between they can well, in a pinch, se to exchange ger heads of cattle and evaluate all things using this primitive standard; we also design- ment that savages are content to use, as native currency, shells and glassworks of their necklaces. But, to from day when these same populations enter into relationships business with foreigners who have another fashion of existence, the cattle-money, the cowrie- currency, the wampum risk of become a intermediate singularly defective. If they are suitable for one of the two parties, they can appear to others to be inconvenient or insufficient. The Greeks that the epic Homeric puts in action can well, among themselves, appreciate all things in heads of cattle; but for the Pheni- people who went to visit them and sold them the manufactured products of the East, this mode of payment would not have failed to be a great embarrassment.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 35 siint, because these browsers could only have very exceptionally, emljarqncr herds on their ships. All political economics textbooks that repeat, to the continuation of Wolowski, the please- health misadventure of I don't know which singer from Paris, who, on tour in a dregs of Oceania, received as payment, following a concert, bananas, of lemons, nuts coconut in huge quantity, and in addition, 3 pigs, 23 turkeys and kï chickens. He was difficult to change of a similar currency. The traffickers euro- people would have been singularly disappointed if the In- say with which they put each other in contact, in the centuries last, would have paid in cowries and in wampums the goods they bring them were. Also, the foreign trade of a population simple with more advanced foreigners at the point from a social point of view, has he always limited himself to the barter of manufactured products from outside against the ri- natural chess of the natives. Now, in this mou- vement exchange, he is met that the metals, — gold, money, the copper, tin, — occupied a place essential, either that they re- clothe the form of utensils, weapons, jewelry, trinkets of all kinds, sold to the natives by merchants, as did the Phé- nicians to the Greeks, whether they were, on the contrary, natural products in the form of powder, flax gots, ore, that the natives delivered to foreign traffickers. Metals being thus one

3f. THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. of the main materials exchanged, we were brought, by a natural instinct, to distinguish their remarks qual aptitude for the role of standard of values. These qualities that all metal possesses intrinsically- ment, it will suffice to indicate them briefly here. Metals are less alterable cjue most other goods or commodities : it is, by therefore, more easy to the keep for a long time in store, without the risk of seeing them deteriorate, like cereals, the livestock, furs. They can be easily accumulated, transported, fragment them without that they lose nothing of theirs value. Their conservation requires little maintenance. yours; they are relatively small in volume. In short, the other standard goods are not seen by all these qualities, or they don't the pos- do not sedate to the same degree. Thirdly, finally , in a society still rudimentary, metals are useful to all the world. They are the essential auxiliaries of Tart of plowing, of hunting, of fishing, of defense social, luxury private and public. Nobody don't would know go away pass. They become naturally, transformed in instruments di- worms", weapons and ornaments, Tune of main, matters of barter, from individual to individual, alongside the cereals and herds. They were thus employed first concurrently with cattle-currency in assessing the price of all things. Then^ their adaptation to this use, favored, like we we have it seen, by trade exterior, and

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 37 better suited to any individual who has specialized specialized in any profession, developed so much and so good that one day came where metals, thanks to their intrinsic qualities, took that the whole place, leaving the livestock only the traditional memory of his former supervisor derance. Such is the walking gradual followed by the development of commercial relations in the world whole. After the exchanges in kind, then the choice of a standard commodity, suitable to suitable for just about everyone , like the cereals and the cattle at the populations agricultural, the use of metals is born which fill better the same office . In their use monetary primitive the metals we appear, next the places, in the most diverse forms : nuggets, powder, ingots more or less elongated and flattened, usten- siles such as spades, axes, pots, hooks, knives, jewelry, bracelets, rings of all dimensions. Under these aspects multiple, who will- laugh with the gender of dominant job at every people, it's always the same pheno- leads : everywhere the standards of value, manufacturing metal cation, replace the standards taken in the natural productions of each country. Here it is what we let's go note, also good at populations contemporary as in antiquity. This substitution of metal other mar- 3

38 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. cliandises, for the general estimation of the value, is a fact which highlights, from the point of view of Science social, the importance remarkable of metallurgical populations in the early history tive of societies. By modifying, by using of metals in tools, many means of existence tension, many methods of the mode of existence, they had an essential influence on the order economical. We find in this universal replacement placement of natural objects by objects in metal , as a standard value, a new application cation of this law, that development social of a people always settles, at the bottom, on the changes to the labor regime. II. OIKZ LKS MODERN PKLTPLES. Nowadays, we know that China, a land classified sique traditions outdated, has not yet of currency golden no money money : she spreads out thus in our eyes customs quite sem- blables to this who had to happen, if we rai- let's ring through induction, in Asia western and the Greek world before the invention of money. The Chinese use, to replace the mon- naie, plates or bricks of gold and silver that we weighs and that we book for the payments, how we deliver the iron or copper for industry uses. “In China, gold and silver never have been coined. Gold is melted in

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 30 small ingots, silver bars of a few ounces, and the merchant who receives them in exchange for his goods, do not the look that like a other merchandise whose weight must be checked with the scale, and the title with the stone of all che. Today (1837) the only metallic currency that bearing imprint is copper currency tin ally... » (1). For the convenience of operations commercial rations, the bankers and the rich merchants generally gave their bullion exact weights, following a regular scale of 1/2 to 10 taels for gold, from 12 to 100 taels for money. He is one of these ingots which are also tenuous only brass wires, which allows you to cut back easily the smallest portion. As soon as a Chinese buy something price too much high for be sold in sapequesj he equips oneself of a instrument- intended to cut, in a gold bar or money, this that he needs to perfect the pay- lies, because he happens very rarely that the mor- those he has with him agree exactly with the weight of which he has need (2). The tael, which weighs about 58 grams, designates the unit of weight, but it is not a currency ; like it varies from city to city, and that the Beijing tael, for example, is ate k% less than that of Tien-tsin, and exceeds 7 ^ the one from Shanghai, it matters, at each transaction, of designate the tael of which (1) Ed. Biot, Memoir on the Chinese monetary system in-80, 1837\ p. 1 et seq. (2) Chaudoir, Overview of Russian coins, p. 91.

40 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. we hear serve (l). In addition, discussions almost commit always, between the buyer and the seller, on the title of the metal of which the alloy may vary infinity. This is to partly avoid these disputes, that bankers print their personal hallmark on the ingots that come out from their house or pass through their hands. What- sometimes, this punching individual, simple brand original or of manufactures, inspire enough of confidence to dispense with checking with the stone of button the title of the alloy. The ease with lacjuelle the public or such merchant accepts, without control, ingots which come from an establishment bank or of specific trade, holds to the notoriety honorable of this house, but no one is obliged to have confidence. Authority public never intervenes, either to force a particular to accept in payment a ingot any, either for guarantee the weight or the law (2). The only Chinese currency minted by the State is the sapèque; she is in copper mixed with tin and its value is extremely minimal. A thousand sapè- which form a liao, commonly a ligature, because these parts are threaded into a cord ; the value of a tiao is 2 fr. 50 to .'} francs. The shape sapeques varies : the most common (1) Count (the Rochecbouarl, in the Journal of /economists- your, t. XV, 1869, p. 103 to 109. (2) Fr. Lenormant, History ancient of the Orient, continued by E. Babelon, t. III, p. 60.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 41 are simple washers pierced with a square hole; others have the shape of knives, ])dry or of razors. On the pleasure of all these parts, produced by the process of fusion^, we bed of characters which give them a con- invention [i]. Some populations agricultural of inside China still exchange, like price standard of all things, the hoyau, their main instrument of culture. They perpetuate thus, in our midst, a state of affairs strong old and more generally widespread in the past : the shapes of spades, knives, razors given to current currencies preserve the memory of time when these instruments were really the sign of values in the greatest part of the Chinese world. When we study the invention tion of the currency at the Greeks, we will have to point out singular analogies with the inhabitants monetary studies which China still offers us currently the show. History currency of Japan is any other that the one of the China. From good hour we we find, in this country, ingots of gold and silver gent, as well as copper, bearing the stamps- either from the central government or from the winemakers of the provinces. However, next to these ingots, true currency official, imperial or feudal, we note, until 1870 (time when (1) J. Hagor. Chinese numismatics (1805, iii-4oj, p. 33 and next; — Terrien de Lacouperie, Catalog of chinese Coins in thc British Museum, Introduction (London, 1S92).

42 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. Japan adopted the method and the shape euro- pagans for its monetary species), the exchange in kind, barter direct, rice used as main intermediary, gold powder, linens gots or gold bars and money, often estam- looted, like in China, by traders or the benches (1). In Annam, alongside barter in kind, cir- make money for the small payments, and gold and silver bars between traders ri- ches (2). The famous treasure of Hue taken by the French, during the conquest of this city in 1886, and currently deposited in the Hotel Mon- naies, to Paris, consists of heavy lyrical rectangular, golden and money, on which are stamped the names princes auxcjuels belonged to these ingots. Such reminder tiles- slow those that Croesus offered to the temple of Delphi : he is, in silver, which weighs 100 taels, that is say more of 3 kilograms and a half; the strongest, in gold, are ten taels (385 grams), of five taels, two taels, one tael, half a tael, a tenth of tael, with countermarks or, for better say, the punches of emperors Ming-Meng (1820-18 VI). Tchao-Tchy (18 il -18 W) and Tu-Duc. Thus, we see that these ingots (1) See E. of Villaret, Japanese umismatics, in the Municipal review, 1892, pp. 126 et seq. (2) And. Avmonier, Xotes on Annam, in the Cochindiine French, fascic. X, 1885, p. 239; — J. Silvestre, Soles to serve in search of the coins of Annam (Saigon, 1883, in-S").

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 43 rectanerular or allonate in square bars, have weights gradually scaled according to the divisions of the weight system. In Burma, in Siam and the regions see sins, we give to small silver bars, no more the simple shape bars or plates elongated, but that of marine shells (July remind the cowries and are a memory of time when these shells were the only sign, exchanges. At the Bahnars, it's the pot usual household standard which is the standard of value, and it is curious to note its equivalence with beef, as among the Greeks of ancient times risks (1). In Korea, after being served, as an interim diary of exchanges, rice and cloth vre, we had sapèques in iron, raw ingots and silver bottles with wide mouths. These coin bottles were of two sizes, some worth li parts canvas, the other 8 or 9. On several occasions, in the course of the means atee, decrees prohibited the mixing of copper or another metal vile to money of bottles, and authority public, for cut short to the fraud, came to stamp with an official seal this singular currency (2). A study more in-depth study of this country and its history, study (1) And. Aymonier, op. cit., fascic. XIII, 1887, p. 296 et seq. Com- pare above, p. 25. (2) Maurice Courant, in the Asian Journal, t. II from 1893, p. 273 et seq.

44 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. than recent events seem likely to dre easier than it was until now, would reveal for sure the reason to be of the favor that this gender of objects had found among the Koreans. At Laos, tells Mr. Aymonier, tax se pay to using bars money or gold, and of the same way we obtains all the Tue- goods (1). For a bar money worth 15 Mexican piastres we buy from 100 to 180 li- ramie or Chinese nettle , following the loca- lities. ASting-Trêng, a slave is sold from three to four bars of silver. In the island of Khon, Mr. Ay- monier saw a court to sentence a indi- fined four bars of silver (2). In the country of Bassak, we serves as my- nay common of small ingots or salmon copper called lat (3). “The currency usual of Sting-Trèng, says the same learned traveler, just as in both provinces to the west of the great river, Tonlé-Ropou and Melou-Préï, is the iron ingot coming from Kompong-Soai, small bar diamond-shaped, thick of a centimeter to more, three wide, fourteen long, and weighing approximately 200 grams. We in gives 10 for a tical, 15 for one piastre. “Singu coin- binding and uncomfortable , said Francis Garnier, who tribute to iron a value eight nine times greater (1) Aymonier, Journey into Laos, pp. 18, 51, 60, 1.33, 200, 301, etc. (2) Ibid., p. 32. (3) Ibid., p. 60, 89, 111. -

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 45 laugher than that that he has in the countries civilized. » Among the tribes of fishermen featured the along the coasts of India as well as in Ceylon and in the Maldives and Laccadive Islands, the hook was used main currency for a long time. With time, the old shape of the hook gradually altered ment : it ends up being nothing more than a metal rod- curved lique and folded on herself. This fishermen's currency was called larln on lari, from name of the city of Lari on the Persian Gulf; the larins, in silver and copper, were still in use at the beginning of the last century, and he some which bear Arabic inscriptions. The weight silver larins often comes close to that of the rupee Indian (11 grams 65). In the Maldives islands, a silver larin was estimated 12,000 cowries. In Arabia, in the Nejd, cir- also produced small forked and folded stems on themselves, which seem to relate well with larins and also be hooks-my- deformed nae (1). In America we see that the Mexicans exchanged gold powder, keeping it in feather pipes; they also had, as a substitute of coins, large tin plates which affect try the form an anchor or the letter T (2). (1) RhysDavids, On i/ieancienl Coins anclMeasurcs ofCeylon, in the Numis)nata Orieatalia, 1. I, p. 68 to 73 ; — W. llidgewa}-, tlie OrUjin of metallic currency, p. 27 to 30 ; — J. Ilager, ISutnis- Chinese matiqne, p. 49. (2) Prescott, Hist. of the conquest of Mexico, Irad. Amédée Pichol, l. I, p. 117. 3.

4r, THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. By entering the continent African, we we will see everywhere, as in Asia and America ric, that as soon as a people half-civil lisée takes another step in the path of progress, she has recourse to metals in bars or to metal utensils, such as sign of exchanges aged, to the place of barter simple or of livestock. So, for example, in the Dourah region or of White Nile, we uses bars iron and of spades of the same metal , which remind the times the spades of China and the axes of time Homerics. At the Bongos and the Nubians, the manufacturing of these spades, times instruments of culture and currency, is an industry; there is in these countries “professional blacksmiths, who are in even time traders of all foodstuffs ; quite a business active is based on the trafficking in iron objects. Then, currency, standard of value for all products, is, in the country Bongo, the loggoh-kollouti, or spade iron enlarged. We are right in the middle of an agricultural region. cole : this no longer in cattle, nor in furs, nor in arrowheads, nor in pearls or other ornaments that the price of a bride is sold for, it is in spade irons. Among the Bambara, the ancient unit monetary was the hariferi or bar of iron )) (1). He was the same on the rating occi- dental of Africa : in Sierra Leone , bars of iron were the main material exchanged between (1) A. de Préville, Uf, African Societies, p. 250.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 47 the natives and the first Europeans who visited terent this coast. In the same region we see circulating, as a commercial standard, hatchets who . too much small for be practically in use, are, without a doubt, the living witness- swimming the primitive period during which of axes of greatness normal were em- bent like currency : the merchants, here as in Rome, were interested in decreasing little approximately the weight of the standard commodity. In Cala- har, we use, for the same purpose, packages of son of copper, assembled some to others by small rings. On others dots of rWest African, These are bracelets gold, in money, in iron, copper (1). In the upper Sene- gal, Dahomey, Congo, the use of the bracelet- currency is universal and presents itself concurrently ment with pure and simple barter. It is by means similar jewels that the Senegalese paid to French traders, in 1863, the wheat which they had need for avoid the famine who the threatened (-2). He is time, after these numerous examples, borrowed, on purpose, to the populations the most (1) W. Rklgeway, the Origin, p. 39 to 42. (2) A. of Chasteigner, the early days of the industry iron in ancient Europe and modern Africa, extracted of the Bulletin of the Society of Anthropology of Bordeaux (vol. IV, 1887), p. 11 ; — G. Deadly, in the Review Belgian numis- matic, 1876, p. 297; — J.-A. Blancliel, in the Revue Belge de numismatics, 1890, p. 129 et seiv.; the same, Éludes de numis- matic, t. I, p. 85 et seq.

48 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. various, to turn our eyes towards the an- tiquity. These shapes varied metallic standards reveal to us, without doubt, some of the features essentials of the life of contemporary societies still too little known; but if we have them noted here, it is especially in the purpose of making them contribute, by analogy , to illuminate the simi- side area of the history of the ancients civilizations of Western Asia and Europe. mr. IN EGYPT OLD. In Pharaonic Egypt, where currency was still unknown, all metals, gold, the elec- trum (natural alloy of gold and silver), money, the copper, the lead, the iron, were employees as a sign of exchange. The Memoir of Lepsius on Metals in Egyptian Insanptions, contains thirty-eight various figures, extracted from monuments Egyptians, which show the shapes multiple under which se present the me- rates in ancient Egyptian trade (1). We the see in heaps of nuggets raw and informed, such as the mines provided them; in scholarships or small bags containing grains, of the powder and of glitter golden, stripped of their gangue by washing, as harvested (1) Lepsius, Metals in the registrations Egyptian, transl. W. Berend (in-4'^); — Fr. Hultsch, Griechisclie uncl rômis- clie Metrology, p. 37G and 400.-

LliS URIC.INKS OF THE CURRENCY. VJ again aujoiircVlini niggers in the top Nile; in hrhjues, in tiles, in bars or in plates, shapes obtained by the merger or a work of metallurgy; finally in rings of different sizes, the most frequent form, especially in the representation of the j)esage operations. Money is rarer than For in Egypt. Gold and electrum came of mining if rich of Ethiopia (1) ; silver was mainly imported from Asia and paid like tribute by the peoples of the Syria i 2). In hieroglyphic texts, we say tin with care gold pure \ciuruni obnjsiwi) of electrum or even the gold which is not refined by the merger. We are also afraid of confusing copper in its matrix, that is to say raw and not purified, with melted and purified copper , (jue the Greeks call milks copper black, -/a///.;; ;x£Aaç (3). The copper was very abundant in the empire of the Pharaohs. Whatever the form given to metals and whatever the degree of purity, one could not use them as standards of the value of things, than to the help of the scale. Several monuments Egyptians represent the operation of weighing monetary metals (i). On one of the trays of (1) Agatharchides, | 23-29, ed. Didot.p. 123ets.;— Diod. Sic, III, 12. — Cf. G. Maspero. Hist. anc. of the Peujiles of the Orient classified sique, t. I, p. 481 ; — F. Robiou, Memoir on administration of Egypt in the time of the Lacjides, p. 191 et seq. (2) Lepsius, op. cit., p. 16 et seq. (3) Ibid., p. 47 and following. (4; On the forms and composition of the Egyptian balance, see Flinders Pétrie, A Season in Erjtjpt., p. 42, and ft. XX; —

50 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. the scale (fig. 1), are placed the weights, which affect- try many forms : these are, for example- ple, figures of oxen or heads of oxen, of gazelles, hippos, lions or others animals; or they are simple flared cubes Fis- ^. like goblets, the upper part rounded die in cap. In the other tray, we pile up metals (1). When it's about of consi- maple, these metals are in tiles or bri- Maspero, Hist. a. of the peoples of the classical Orient, 1. 1, p. 324. (1) Lepsius, Denkmaler, t. III, 10 a ; 39 a, d, etc. ; —Barclay V. Head, The Coinage of Lijdia and Persia, p. 1 ; — W. Ridgeway, The origin of metalUc currency and weight standards, p. 128 ; — Fr. Lenonnant, Hist. anc. of the East, t. III, p. 59; — F. Hultsch, Gr. und rom. Metrology, p. 377.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 51 qiies; if on the contrary they are mediocre weights or tiny, they have the appearance of rings open ^13 . or of stems folded on themselves g— . In both case, these ingots take the name of tabnou (1); the stem, free to two extr- moth-eaten, could be trimmed at will, as in China, for the needs of weight adjustment. As a result of long practice and the effect of spontaneous progress of social relations, the tabnou ends up being cut to advance, following a weight fixed, known to all and corresponding to the unit or the standard of the Egyptian weight system. The tabnu thus prepared, weighed 90 at 98 grams envi- ron : it became the weight standard for modern metals netaries. We went further. in order to escape, as much as possible, to the obligation to cut corners without cease the tabnous for adjust the weight and the payments, use came from cut, like us we observed it in the composition of the treasure of Hue, ingots which had varying weights, but graduated of a way fixed and related with the levels of the weight system. The spring main division was the kitc, the tenth part of the tabnu. We will understand our thoughts better if we suppose, for example, that the currency is sup- (1) F. Lenorniant, the currency in antiquity, t. I, \). 104; — G. Maspero, Hist.anc, t. I, p. 324. — Today we read tabnou the hieroglyphic sign that ancient Egyptologists read oiiten. W. Spiegelberg, Die Lesung des Gcwitchtes tabnou, dans le Re- cncil of works relating to Egypt and Assyria, t. XV, p. 145.

52 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. awarded at us, and that metals precious circulate in the trade under the shape of ingots of a gram, one hectogram, one kilogram, etc. There were gold and silver ingots people cut next the smallest divisions of system weight, of way to serve to tran- secondary actions of commerce or to perfect payments the most accurate (i). Mr. Michel Soutzo published an Egyptian gold ring rig. 2. yours (fig-. 2), belonging to the baron from Saurma, which seems to have served as an exchange ring. He is open, and weighs 15 gv. iO. Of points, to the number of Si, are marked in hollow over its entire length, half on each face. Whatever the rela- tion that exists, or no, between these dots and the weight, Valoi or the value of the metal, it is a ring equivalent to one sixth of tabnou (2). The Leiden Museum has gold rings who also served as intermediaries for the exchanges (1) Fr. Lenonnant, Coinage in Antiquity, l. I, p. 107-108. (2) M. Soutzo, Primitive weight standards, p. 51 and pL III, A, B, C.

^ THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 53 aged : they have the shape of wires curved into circles or folded into an S (1). Their graduated weights appear relate, no longer to the Egyptian weight system- yours, but to the Chaldeo-Babylonian system (2). If this have it was good established, we could consi- to be considered as having been brought to Egypt by the commerce; maybe they belong to the era during which the Chaldeo-Assyrians or the Persians dominated in the valley of Nile ; it is however more likely than these rings have featured among the tributes paid to the Egyptians while these latest were masters of Palestine and the Syria. This is how, for example, in the great inscription from the temple of Karnak (3), Thutmes III relates that he received Khetas from Syria, 301 tab- us of silver (approximately 27,692 grams) in eight rings; each ring therefore weighed almost 3,462 grams and worth 37 or 38 tablions. Thout- mès naturally counts in tdbnous^ following the system Egyptian weight; according to the system Chaldeo-Assyrian, each ring was worth 42 staters. We escape and we pay everything in tabnous: gratuities to soldiers (4) , workers' wages (5) , (1) Leemans, Egyptian Monuments of God liet Nederl. Mu- seum, t. II, pi. XLI, no. 296. (2) F. Lenormant, Money in Antiquity, t. I, p. 104; — G. Maspero, Hisl. anc. peoples of the classical Orient, t. I, p. 32 i. (3) Fr. Lenormant, Coinage in antiquity, t. I, p. 103. (i) Maspero, of the epislolar genre of the ancient Egyptians, p. 77. (.")) Collection of works relating to Egypt and Assyria, t. I, p. 57 and following.

54 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. movable objects, fields, houses, cereals (1), slaves, judicial fines. It reached us papyri hieroglyphics on which are transcribed from the accounts which provide the indication of the price of various things in copper tabnous : An ox is valued 119 copper tabnous. A newborn kid 2 labnus. A pair geese 1/4 tabnou. A knife 3 tabnous. A razor 10 tabnous. Five pieces of cloth 2o tabnous. 5 hours (2 liters 30) of honey.... 4 tabnous. 11 hours (S liters 06) of oil. ... 10 tabnous. Tanned skin 2 tabnous. A cane with inlays. ... 4 tabnous. A simple cane, made of cypress.... 1 tabnu. A pickaxe 2 tabnous. A bronze strainer b tabnous (2). As in China, splitting regular of monetary bars did not dispense re- run to the scales whoever judges about to check the weight of the ingots that each party culier brought to the market and which he had cut of his private authority ; it was also necessary constantly, as we have seen by examples , as- sure^ using the touchstone, or other- (1) Pleyte and Rossi, Hieratic Papyri of Turin, pi. X.WIX, 1. 5 and 9; and ft. XCI, 2; — Chabas, lieclierches on the poith. measures and currencies of the ancient jyjijp hold, p. 17 and next. ; — Fr. Lenorniaiit, Currency in antiquity, t. I, p. 95. (2) F. Lenormant, Hisl. ancient of the Orient, t. III, p. 57-58; — the even, Currency in antiquity, t. I, p. 95.

THE ORICINS OF CURRENCY. gold. ment, of the title of precious metals. Fraud does not should not be rare ; in the Egyptian confession registered in the Livide des Morts, we find these mentions very significant in the mouth of the deceased : ^< I don't have pulled on the scale of the scale! I don't have not distorted the scourge of the balance (1) I » In short, what dominates in the Egyptian system- here, as in the Far East, this is the use metal appreciated by weight : the balance reigns in sovereign. Metals take on por- tative and easy to start in small fractions : the bar, the S, the ring open are facts thus to be more conveniently adapted to the needs of commercial traffic. As for the weights which we put in the balance to weigh metals, their animal forms are visibly borrowed presented in the old way of evaluating exchanges in heads of domestic animals or animals hunting useful by the products that can be obtained from them. IV. IN ASSYRIA AND EX CHALDEE. At the Chaldeo-Assyrians, where the use of metals valuable rate as a standard of value, has shown itself very early, in competition with the simple barter, we don't sees little but gold, electrum, the ar- gent, the copper, the iron, tin, have been brought in the shape of rings like the tabnou of Egypt (1) Maspero, Hist. anc, t. I, p. 189.

r.G THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. hold. They were from simple bricks or tablets flat, similar to those found in the foundations of the palace of Khorsal^ad, less the cuneiform inscriptions with which these are covered green. On the Ninevite bas-reliefs, the tributaries who bring gifts to the king who give him gold and money in scholarships or of casseroles, or well in bricks and conical or pyramid ingots midals. Whatever the form in which it is present gold, silver, copper, it is necessary, as in Egypt, constantly using the scale to have them evaluated. We don't appreciate them that at weight ; hence it comes that in Assyrian and in the others Semitic languages, the word Sp'c;, saqal, means at the times weigh ç.i pay/er (1). “The marcliand weighs money and measurement the grain ", says an Assyrian text (-2). money, more widespread that gold in the cities of Mesopota- mie, play one leading role in operations commercial rations. The use was introduced, as in Egypt, prune the ingots in dry weight longed in advance, of such that the century, the half shekel. the mine, the talent became, in Semitic Asia, ingots of a weight equal to weight divisions carrying these names. With of money to weight, we buy, — as one the (1) F. Lenormant, the Currency in Vantiquilé, t. I, p. 111. (2) Mahiru liaspa Isahal u seam imadnd. 'Oppcrt cl Leading, Legal Documents of Assyria and of the Chaldee, p. 12, 1. 'i4-i5;. Compare other texts, such as this one : mana bar haspa isakkal, » he weighs half of a silver mine. (Op- pert and Leading, op. cit., p. 58," 1. 12.)

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 57 notes in the private interest contracts which we have reached so many, — one slave, a house, a field, an orchard, livestock; we pay a salary, a fine, a debt or interests. In a document of this genre, dated from the reign of Assarhaddon, seven female slaves are sold three mining money (1). Elsewhere, a woman slave is paid a mine and eight drachmas money (2) ; another woman is worth a mint and half (3). We buy a house for three mines two silver third (V); fifteen sheep and one full cow for ten silver mines from Carché- put (5). In these transactions, it is rarely spoken of gold payments; there are, however, some con- trats where there is talk of a gold mine (6); a other talks about “ ten mines of pure silver and of ten mines golden worked » (7). The oi' was imported in Mesopotamia of India and Egypt, or else he arrived via Phoenician trade. The copper is also rare that gold, despite the near File de Cypre ; However, let us cite a (1) Oppert and Menant, op. cit., p. 182. (2) Ibid., p. 195. {3) Ibid., p. 202; see other examples in Fr. Lenormant, Hist. anc. of the East, continued by E. Babelon', t. V, p. yy and next. (4) Oppert and Menant, op. cit., p. 171 (5) I()id., p. 158. (6) Ibid., pp. 241, 244 and 249. (7) A'mana I,aspa glows, x mana Jiurasu saliru. (Oppert and Leading, o/J. cit., p. 207, line 49).

58 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. payment of four mines of drunkenness (1) ; another , of two copper talents of the goddess Istar of Ar- beles (2). Besides the bricks, Assyrian trade appears having made use of ingots already bearing an em- conventional currency like real money table. This is, at least, what seems to us to result text of contracts that mention pay executed "in silver drachmas, at the head of Istarde Nineveh” (3). It is probably of small ingots money, weight of a dra- chem, and representative the head of the goddess Istar. We can, therefore, legitimately assume that others ingots had the shape of lions, of oxen, ducks, like the weights themselves who were serving to the weigh. This guess is further confirmed by what we knows kings of Lydia, who offered to the oracle of Delphi, to the times of lyrical and statuettes of lions in gold massive; Schliemann, finally, has collected quantities tities of cow heads however, around the Sanctuary of Liera, in Mycenae. On the bas-reliefs of Persepolis, the prince purchased (1) Oppert and Menant, op. cit., p. 171. {'2) II hilat eri sagrutl sa ana Istar saArbailii ; “two talents of pure copper (or worked ?) dislar of Arbeles ". (Oppert and Me- nant, op. cit., p. 187; — F. Lenormant, Hist. anc, t. V, p. 113 et seq.) (3) Daraç/mana kaspa kakhadi sa Istar sa A'i/um. (Oppert and Leading, op. cit., p. 226.) These scholars translate : “drach- my money at title of istar of Nineveh ". But nothing authorizes to translate by title the word kakkaclu, which means head in Assyrian as in other Semitic languages.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 59 Menides receives purses from the hands of the vanquished, torques, small precious casseroles carried on the hand, globular ingots, other very flattened like of bricks. Of tributaries even carry scales, on the trays of the where weights or metal ingots are placed, which have the external curve of small bells (1). The Indians paid to Darius, as tribute an- nude, gold glitter [•br^-;\}.x] contained in bags of a determined weight (2). Although then money was already invented and re- hanging, the king of Persia keeps in his treasury the precious metals to the state of ingots that he done monetized only as and when his needs : ((The king, says Herodotus, hoard taxes of this way : we melts metals and we pours them, still liquid, into earthenware vases cooked ; when they are cooled, we break this inter- velop. When the king needs money, he done hit the amount which him is necessary » (3). Finally, in Avestan books, payments in ingots estimated by weight are the most ordinary (i). Thus^ by these examples, we see that em- worst Asian had constantly, like Egypt, recourse to metal standards for appreciate everything that could be evaluated read. A the era fully historical, the barter (1) Flaiidin and Coste, ancient Persia, ft. 107, 109, etc. (2) Heiod., III, 94. (3) Ibid., 96. (4) Ridgevvay, op. cit., p. 148 et seq.

GO THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. pure and simple had, in Mesopotamia and had Persian as well as in the Ml valley, a trend to disappear and was hardly in use that in the ranks lower than the company or in the particular circumstances which favored it the app occasional. V. — CJIKZ THE HEBREWS AND THE PHEMCIEXS. In Syria and in Palestine, as in Egypt and in Chaldea, commercial transactions are carried out know, usually, through metals precious and copper. Wherever in the Bible there is mention of payments, these are the rate who serve as a standard of value. We weigh them always, and the century ('^Z'C , count and weigh) was a weight unit for a long time before becoming a currency (1 ). For demonstrate (|ue the century was not, in the •principle, something other than a weight, just understand parry between them the biblical passages where he is talked about golden shekels (-2) , shekels of silver (3), of shekels of iron (i), shekels of copper (5), of shekels (1) Fr. Lenormant, In Currency in Vantiqiiilé, t. I, p. 108; — Fr. Hullsch, Griecli. iind rom. Metrology, p. 405. {2d Gen., XXIV, 22; — Number, seen, 14, 20, 62, 68, 86; — I Chronicles, xxi, 25. (,3; Gen., XXIII, 16; — Noinbr., seen, 13, 19, 25, etc.; — Exod., XXI, 32; — Levi., xxvii, 3; — Deulér., xxii, 29. (4) I Kings, XTii, 7. (5) Exod., xxxviii, 29.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 61 aromatics (1), of shekels of food (2). In short, he is acquired that the century, like the mine and the ta- slow, was originally only one of the divisions of the weight system. Complaints and many times times we notes, in the books biblical, that the metals serving to exchanges were split, in advance, into ingots of the exact jDoids of a century, a half century, a mine, talent, or weight equal to their mul- tiples or their divisions. These linen clippings tastes of gold, money , copper , staggered gra- dually as the weight of a scale , circulated among all hands, so that, even as in China and Egypt, it was generally ment to his scope the means of perfect a payment, that is to say to adjust a weight determine- metal mined , without having to cut corners, session holding, ingots whose mass exceeded the weight searched. We could also avoid resorting to to the scale and simply count the shekels to the room, when we judged about remember it- bring to the good repute of the banker or the debtor tor. The first commercial transaction that men- read Genesis is the acquisition, by Abraham, of the Makpela cave including he wanted do his tomb. The patriarch, who had returned from E- Egypt , “very rich in herds, in silver and (1) Exo(l.,xxx\m, 29. (2; Ezekiel, iv, 10.

62 THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. in gold » (1), book by weight (Sp^'') to Ephron , 400 shekels of money, “such that they take place between the merchants » (2). It is made, by these words, al- illusion to the weight and title of the centuries. He must, of even, recognize of weight assessments in the numerous biblical passages where we find listed payments, gifts, contributions or fines in shekels, mines or talents , for example when the Israelites impose feel, for the construction of the temple, a capital tation of half a shekel per head (3) , when Abi- melek, king of Ciérar, made a gift to Abraham of thousand silver shekels ('i-), or that Abraham pays in Oman 600 shekels, gold (5). Joseph is sold by his brothers for twenty silver shekels weighed (G). In the Mosaic law , everything is paid in money timed at weight : houses , herds , fields , fines , contributions for the temple, sacrifices of animals, redemption of the firstborn, offerings to prophets (7). As in other countries, the form given to these filling ingots the currency office was very variable. When we talk about enormous sums (1) Gen., XIII, 2; XXIV, 33. (2) Ibid., XXIII, 16. (3) Exod., XXX, 13. (4) Gen., xx, 16. (5) I Chronicles, xxi, 25. (6) Gen., xxxvii, 25, 28. (7) Levit., V, 15; xxvii, 3 et seq.; — Number, m, 45 et seq.; xviii, 15; — Deuter., ii, 6, 28; xiv, 26; — ExoJ., xxi, xxii, wx. 13, 15 ; xxx\ III, 26.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 63 my, for example of talents of gold (1), of talent money (2), talents of lead (3), talents copper (i), of talents of iron (5), it is without doubt, in large part, of ingots raw, of bricks, very heavy salmon. The Semitic name of talent, ^22, kikka)\ means “ circle ", and if we remember the shape of the Egyptian tabnu , we will easily admit that this name draws its origin of the very shape of the primitive ingots which weighed a talent. In the book of Joshua, he is spoken of a “ language golden » weighing fifty sieles (6i. Ingots of poor weight were often manufactured and transformed into jewelry, especially in bracelets and in rings, as in Egypt. We find in effect, repeatedly, the formal mention of weighed jewelry that is used as payment (7). The jewels that Ré receives becca (8) consist of a ring golden weight half a shekel and two bracelets weighing two sieles : the insistence with which we specify the weight of these jewels is significant. Likewise, when Job's many relatives and friends give him, each, a gold ring, he is clear that these ba- (1) IRois, IX, the i; X, 10 etc. (2) He Kings, V, 22, etc. (3) Zach., V, 7. (4) Exod., XXXVIII, 29. (5) 1 Chroii., XXIX, 7. (6) Josh., VII, 21, 24. (7) Number, xxxi, 50, 51; —Judges, viii , 20; — Job, xlil 11. (8) Gen., xxiv, 22.

(Vt THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. gues don't can be considered that like currency (1). In Samuel (2), it is spoken of an individual who bears on him, like a real piece of art. naie, a quarter-century ingot. And even, in the book of Judges, we see a character, Mica, who uses, for his payments, shekels having the shape of an engraved image (3). This particularity reminds drachmas in head from Istar that we reported on Assyrian contracts. Often also, precious metals circulate in small parts, in grains or powder, musty in scholarships. When the brothers of Joseph buy some wheat in Egypt, at the time of the famine, they take sums of money into of scholarships hidden in background of their bags of wheat ('i-). The use of scholarships is frequently men- mentioned in the Bible 5). In the time of King Joash, he there was, in the temple of Jerusalem, a box whose cover was pierced with a groove like the trunk of our churches : in this opening the priests slipped small ingots or, for better (1) Job, XLII. 11. (2) I Samuel, ix. 8. (3) Judgment, XVII ^ '2, 4. Oa also has a lot dissertation to know if the word n"L2it,'p, qesiilia, which appears three times in the Bible (Gen., xxxiii, lî);— Jos., XXIV, 32; — Job,XLii, 11), would not designate a ingot marked with the imprint of a ram. — See Madden, (lies Coi- nage of ilie Jews, p. He ; — Hullscli, Griecli. nnd rôm. Metrolo- gie, pp. 460 et seq. (4) Gen., XLII, 27 and following. (5) II Kings, XII, 9 et seq. ; .— Prov., i, 14 ; vi, 20; xvr, 11 ; — Isaiah, XLvi, 6; — Job, xiv, 7; — Doubting., xxv, 13.

THE ORIGINS OF CURRENCY. 65 say, the silver coins offered by the people for the repair of the temple ; when the trunk was filled fold, we emptied and we put the money in bags, after counting and weighing it (1). All this brings us closer gradually from the use of the currency, but these metal coins are not for it so much not yet really and completely. (( 11 y missing, says Fr. Lenormant, what the juriscons- Roman sults called in currency law and shape. Neither weight nor title were guaranteed by public authorities. The fiduciary side, which is the essence of all money, even the best lure, of the one whose the value real is the most exactly in accordance with the nominal value nale, and who fact that we receive it without verification in daily transactions, because of his legal character and the confidence inspired by the government letter she received, this side fiduciary was absolutely lacking (2). » The operation of weighing ingots is not always days mentioned, but it cannot be ob- cast of the slightest doubt. However, it is formal- ly specified in several passages, and we notes that, in the transactions which took place on the public square, at marclié, seller and buyer se serve of scales that they wear always on the belt, with a series of weights in (1) H Kings, xii, 9 and following. ; — cf. II Chroa., xxiv, 8. (2) Fr. Leaonnant, Ancient history of the East, continued parE. Babelon, t. III, p. 59-60, and the currency in antiquity, t. I, p. 109. 4.

6G THE ORIGINS OF THERE CURRENCY. stone (1) ; “a false scale is an abomination before the Lord (2) » . It is likely that it existed at Jewish employees official who settled in the main markets, equipped scales and other certified accurate measurements by authority public. This are maybe of civil servants of this type who must be recognized on the Egyptian paintings mentioned above, which represent characters checking with their scales the weight of the tabnous. What we allows us to make this conjecture, it is the inscription Aramaic of famous weight, in the shape of a lion, found at Abydos (Troad), on the basis of which we bed : “ Controlled from the front the conservatives of money (3). » The Greeks and the Romans had also public weighers called ^uyisia-ai and li- bripendenles. It wasn't long ago, finally, that official measurers carried out the same functions tions in France, in all fairs and markets. The cjuc uses we have just noted among the Jews, se find the same at their neighbors to the North, the Syrians or Iletheans and the Phoenicians nicians. In the great inscription of the temple of Karnak, Thutmes III tells that he received of Klietas (Hthetheans) of Syria, among other tributes, (1) Gen.. xxiii, 16; — Exod., xxii, 17; —II San., xviii, 12; — 1 Kings, XX, 39; — Jer.. xxxii, 9, 10, etc.; — Deuter., xxv, 13; — Prov., XVI, 11 ; XI, 1 ; XX, 10, 23; — Micli., ai, 11 ; — Anios, viii, 5. (2) Proverbs, xi, l. (3) Mr. de Vogiié, in Will Revue arcliêol., t. I of 18G2, p. 30; — Brandis, Bas Munz-Mass und Gewichtswesen in Vorderasien, p. 54; — Corp. register semitic, leaves secunda , t. I, p. 100.