CLA260H1 Lecture Notes - Ancient Greek Coinage, Making Money, Precious Metal
Document Summary
For further information on how coins were made" (pages 200-201) it is worth looking at t. rihll making money in classical athens" in d. mattingly and j. salmon eds. Economies beyond agriculture in the classical world (london 2001), especially for issues of technology and logistics. (see the end of this handout) The near east managed to operate sophisticated monetized economic systems for centuries before the invention of coinage (and continued perfectly happily in many areas afterwards), using weighed bullion (usually silver). Western" coinage (including indian and islamic coinages) right up to the present day. The other major tradition is the quite different one developed by the chinese (which in turn heavily influences korean, Japanese and vietnamese coinages): the earliest coinages are struck in electrum (a naturally occurring alloy of silver and gold), but greek coinage is overwhelmingly made of silver. Persian darics") is not common until the reign of philip ii of.
