Long before the age of standardized coinage was a system of bartering that stretched back into the dawn of civilization and further beyond even into man’s prehistory. Whatever man needed and could not get and could not take from his neighbors by force, he took to the mutual exchange of goods for what his neighbors needed that he had but his neighbors could not produce themselves. This is the basis for all bartering.
In the ancient proto Indo-European society of the steppe, where boundless grass planes sprawled and the resources were sparce wealth took a different meaning. From the ancient proto Indo-European root peḱ, meaning “to pluck (wool),” we derive the word péḱu, meaning “livestock”. In the daughter languages of the proto Indo-European language family this world had hardly evolved and in Latin had retained its meaning and was spelled as pecu. From pecu, we derive the world pecunia, which ultimately means “money,” To the ancient proto Indo-Europeans, livestock was money. The wealthiest man was the chief who had the largest herd of sheep, horses, cattle, or any other beast he could tame, eat, or trade. As every steppe culture required livestock of some sort to survive, the widespread system of using livestock as a system of steppe bartering became overwhelmingly used by those grassland cultures.
These ancient societies and several cultures understood the necessity of goods as the basis of their survival. Most men of the modern world understand wealth as its stand in, the currency which we use to facilitate trade as a universal standard of exchange. However, all the money in the world cannot feed you, nor can all the money in the world move true power. Currency as it stands in the modern age is merely a substitute for true wealth, the thing which it is meant to purchase.
The growing complexities of societies and their ever evolving trade goods meant the need for something standardized grew, and the ancient world felt its pull towards the universal emblem of wealth, the rare and beautiful metals of gold and silver.
Eventually the use of ingots as a semi-standardized medium of trade amongst several cultures. Gold, silver, and even copper ingots became wide spread among traders in the several river valley civilizations, and precious metals were becoming useful for something beyond their ornate qualities, or useful properties when smelted into shape. Slowly the quality of the metals became an expectation of trade, as the metals continued to become used more frequently in trades. Famously, a letter in imprinted in Akkadian Cuneiform we now call the “Complaint to Ea-Nasir” was written to repremand him for his low quality copper ingots as well as for berating the servant of the man who originally sent the servant to purchase the copper ingots from the 18th century BC Babylonian scammer.
“Tell Ea-nasir: Nanni sends the following message:
When you came, you said to me as follows: ‘I will give Gimil-Sin (when he comes) fine quality copper ingots.’ You left then but you did not do what you promised me. You put ingots which were not good before my messenger (Sit-Sin) and said: ‘If you want to take them, take them; if you do not want to take them, go away!’
What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with such contempt? I have sent as messengers gentlemen like ourselves to collect the bag with my money (deposited with you) but you have treated me with contempt by sending them back to me empty-handed several times, and that through enemy territory. Is there anyone among the merchants who trade with Telmun who has treated me in this way? You alone treat my messenger with contempt! On account of that one (trifling) mina of silver which I owe you, you feel free to speak in such a way, while I have given to the palace on your behalf 1,080 pounds of copper, and umi-abum has likewise given 1,080 pounds of copper, apart from what we both have had written on a sealed tablet to be kept in the temple of Samas.
How have you treated me for that copper? You have withheld my money bag from me in enemy territory; it is now up to you to restore (my money) to me in full.
Take cognizance that (from now on) I will not accept here any copper from you that is not of fine quality. I shall (from now on) select and take the ingots individually in my own yard, and I shall exercise against you my right of rejection because you have treated me with contempt.”
-Translation by Assyriologist A. Leo Oppenheim
However, ingots were far too expensive and only adequate for larger transactions. The fact of the matter was that the average everyday freeman need only a small portion of an ingot to conduct his daily, weekly, or monthly purchases for which he was not able to produce himself. This was the need, and soon came the birth of coins.
“So far as we have any knowledge, they [the Lydians] were the first people to introduce the use of gold and silver coins, and the first who sold goods by retail.”
-Herodotus, Book I, Chapter 94 of the Histories
The ancient Greeks knew the origins of coinage lied with the Lydians of central and western Anatolia in their electrum coins, an alloy of gold and silver, though debated over the King which first struck gold and silver into shape. Some scholars believed King Croesus to be the origin of their electrum coins, however King Croesus came far after the use of coinage started. Some other men argued the neighboring King Midas of the Phyrgians to be the king responsible for the first coins, from which we derive the tale the greedy king whose touch turned everything into gold, yet King Midas lived too early to be the source of true electrum.
The most likely origin for the first coins to ever be used was King Gyges who is credited with creating the Lydian Stater. The coin bore on one side a lion and a bull, while the back bore a punchmark. Plato would later write of the story of the Ring of Gyges, which would turn the wearer completely invisible upon slipping the ring onto his finger, enabling the wearer to commit any act with complete impunity. The shepherd Gyges used the ring to usurp the one true king of Lydia and take control of the kingdom. If this story sounds familiar, it is the basis for J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.
King Gyges created the electrum coins which the Greeks referred to as “white gold”. Soon, the Greeks saw the utility of coins in their growing and complex mediterranean trade network, so they followed suit in creating their own coins. First the men of Aegina created their own coins we refer to now as drachma, which bore the emblem of a turtle, a symbol of Aphrodite, and the back had a square punchmark. Later, the men of Corinth created their own drachma which bore the symbol of the Pegasus on one side and Athena on another. Then came the Athenians who created their own drachma that bore the emblem of the Athenian Owl on one end and Athena on the reverse side. From the Aegean Sea the use of coins spread like wildfire, spreading faster than many previous technologies, and many subsequent technologies of the ancient world. The use of coinage was obvious and immediately adopted into widespread foreign use.
Today we live in a post coin society, where things are not bought with other things of actual value. No, we do not even buy things with objects which have some inherent precious value but an overall lack of use. No, we use a representation of a representation of actual value, paper or plastic money earned through labor or other shady ways such as Ea-Nasir.
While the world demands of you that you should own nothing, be paid in nothing, and should covet worthless things, I am here to tell you there is another way. You can reject this system of valuelessness and cut out the middle man. You can go straight to the older systems of value which meant something. You can make things that matter. You can own things that enrich your life. You are able to live a life beyond the value of a representation of value printed onto paper and purchased with interested through the scan of your plastic credit cards. Your péḱu awaits your arrival. As always brothers, I am here with you in the abyss.