Coinage proper was preceded in both the East and the West by more prehistoric currencies, nonmonetary or semi-monetary, which persisted into the historical era of genuine coins and may have originated from the trade of cattle, tools, and other items.
Inscriptions on miniature hoes and billhooks (pruning implements), the first form of money in China dates to the eighth century BC. Small bronze celts, prehistoric implements that resembled chisels, and bronze rings that were regularly discovered in hoards in Western Europe most likely served as currency. Fishhook cash and other similar exchange methods have been known even in current times.
Because it is strong, reusable, and portable, metal has long been a popular choice as a means of exchange, and this is where true coinage first emerged. Ancient Egypt eventually evolved a form of gold ring currency, having previously used gold bars of fixed weight dating back to the fourth millennium BC (but it did not adopt the use of coinage in foreign trade until the late 4th century AD). In addition to gold and silver bars from which parts might be cut, gold rings have long been used as both jewelry and money in the Middle East. The availability of the metal was the deciding factor, as usual. Many years before genuine coinage was created, massive copper ingots were used as money in the Aegean Sea region.
Originally weighing more than 25 kilograms (55 to 60 pounds), these ingots, called as talents, were later utilized as a unit of worth. The discovery of an iron bar containing a handful (drachma) of fractional iron spits (obeloi) that was dedicated in the Heraeum (a temple to the goddess Hera) at Argos, possibly as a result of King Pheidon of Argos' reforms of weights and measures in the 7th century BC, demonstrates the persistence of such currency into historical times. Similar bundles of spits have been discovered in other locations and show the need to break a large item into more manageable portions for everyday use.
In the end, there was a desire to compare the worth of a talent made of copper or iron to that of gold or silver, and Homer also refers to the talent of gold when he describes metal objects like axes, tripods, and basins as gifts and prizes in a way that demonstrates how valuable they are as a measure of wealth (i.e., the value of a heavy base-metal talent expressed in a little pellet of gold). Julius Caesar's account of the ancient British use of iron bars as cash (following his assaults on Britain in 55 and 54 BC) is still supported by not rare finds. Rough copper lumps (aes rude) formed a currency in Italy from early times before being replaced by bars of regular weight.
Such "heavy" currencies, primarily seen in European countries, demonstrate the use of metals often used to make tools. As a result of the East's gold and later Greece's silver having an impact on this system, it became necessary to value these metals in terms of gold and silver, which in turn made it necessary to regulate and guarantee the amount of gold and silver used in this way in order to avoid constant weighing. The stage of real coinage, as it first emerged in Asia Minor and India, had been attained once gold (and eventually silver) gained acceptability as conveniently compact manifestations of relatively high value, with a visible mark of promise. The easternmost reaches of the Greek world did not have proper coinage, and Carthage and Etruria did not develop coinage until the fifth century AD.
Greek coins from the past
Early stages, approximately 650-490 BC
Soon after 650 BC, true currency started. It was created by the Lydians, who were "the first to strike and use coins of gold and silver," according to the Greek poet Xenophanes of the sixth century, as cited by the historian Herodotus. The foundation deposit of the Artemisium (temple to Artemis) at Ephesus reveals that electrum coins were produced prior to King Croesus, possibly under King Gyges. King Croesus of Lydia (reigned approximately 560–546 BC) produced a bimetallic system of pure gold and pure silver coins.
The earliest coins of Croesus were made of electrum, sometimes known as "white gold" in Greek. This type was later applied to his bimetallic series of pure gold and pure silver. They were stamped on one side with the facing heads of a lion and a bull. (Recent scholarship, however, contends that Croesus' Persian successors actually struck this last series.)
Early electrum coins were thin, thick, bean-shaped coins with a device printed in relief on one side and coarsely impressed on the other. Although the weight of the unit was generally constant at around seven to eight grams and the kinds stamped on them were the assurance of authority, their intrinsic value fluctuated depending on how much gold and silver they contained.
Greece was a close ally of Croesus, and his use of a bimetallic system may have had something to do with the country's recent production of its first silver coins. The earliest coins come from Aegina and feature an incuse square on the reverse and an Aphrodite-related turtle on the obverse. Tradition has it that Pheidon of Argos struck these coins because of his dominance over Aegina; however, the coins are too old to be associated with him in Aegina. One example of this is Julius Pollux, a Greek scholar who lived in the second century AD.
The Aeginetan weight standard for coinage, based on a drachma of around six grams, expanded over much of the Peloponnese and the Aegean, where identical currency was made in the islands, during a time when the Aeginetan maritime hegemony was developing. Two neighboring powers were motivated to issue their own currencies by ambition and pride.
It is reasonable to assume that in Athens, in the first half of the 6th century, Attic coins, based on a drachma of about 4.25 grams derived from Euboea and with a variety of obverse types, including an owl (the reverses, like those of the Corinthian pegasi, were impressed with a die design), were replacing the earlier cuneiform coins. Corinth was coining silver from about 575 with.
Although these early silver coins had much lower intrinsic value than the electrum and gold coins of Asia Minor, they still had a lot of purchasing power. The Aeginetan and Attic-Euboic didrachms, the Corinthian tridrachm, and other high denomination coins were designed for major trade, not daily use. These staters, or standard units, could easily be exchanged across cities because to the mina weight of 425 grams (1/60 talent), which is made up of 150 Corinthian, 100 Attic, and 70 Aeginetan drachmas. Only slowly did fractional bits grow.
Between 550 and 500, trade and civic pride had led to the widespread use of coins throughout the Greek world. There was a network of various and competitive currencies, typically of fine quality and consistent weight, that extended from the Persian Empire, the successor to Croesus, with its extensive gold and silver coinage, to Magna Graecia and Sicily, and from the Dorian colony of Cyrene to the Greek or semi-Greek cities of Thrace. As minting methods improved, so did their appearance. The crudely impressed reverse punch was gradually replaced with a second kind, in relief.
The reorganized coinage of Athens, which bears the Athena head on the obverse and the Athens owl—the city's patron and civic emblem—on the reverse, clearly demonstrates the significant impact this had on the development of coin types. The monarch's head on an English penny can be traced back to the head of Athena through Alexander's deified head, and the symbol of Britannia ultimately derives from such state badges as the owl.
The obverse type in relief was repeated intaglio on the reverse in some cities in Italy and Sicily, including Tarentum and Metapontum. This technique was most likely used to hide the older coin types that were imported for restriking. For a very long time, the early Greek coins had no inscriptions or, in the rarest of cases, just a letter or two designating the issuing city or state authority.
Early and even later Greek coin types were straightforwardly designed and frequently derived from the animal kingdom. Among them are various animals (the bull, a typical river emblem), birds (the owl of Athens, the eagle of Zeus at Olympia, and the dove at Sicyon), insects (such as the bee of Ephesus), fantastical beings (such as the griffin at Abdera), and plant-based objects. The cock, a forerunner of hemera, the day, at Himera; the lion at Leontini; the goat at Aegae; the quince at Melos; the sickle-shaped harbor at Zancle; the selinon leaf at Selinus; and others were frequently chosen as playful allusions to a city's name.
Others, such as silphium at Cyrene, a silver miner's pick at Damastium, a bunch of grapes at Naxos, and a wine jar at Chios, declared a particular product to be the city's main export. The choice of typography was frequently determined by cult connotations. The mythical Taras, the dolphin-riding founder of Tarentum, Knossos' Minotaur or Labyrinth, Croton's Apollon tripod, and Poseidonia's Poseidon statue were all displayed there. Human or anthropomorphic representations, however, were very rare on early Greek coins, albeit the famed gold darics, a word derived from Darius I, and silver shekels of Persia featured the mighty ruler in an attitude of assault.
The depiction of idealized deities' heads, which had first gained popularity in Athens and Corinth for the two Athenas Parthenos and Chalinitis, quickly spread to other cities thanks to the invention of double-relief coinage (coinage with both the obverse and reverse in relief), which allowed a civic deity's head to be paired with the city's symbol on the opposite side. Since the Greek tyrants typically adhered to the premise that coinage was the corporate manifestation of the state economy, they saw coinage as being too essential to be produced privately. Its status as an essentially corporate right is highlighted by the traditions that, whether or wrongly, linked the establishment of coinage and the reform of weights to all three of history's greatest lawgivers—Pheidon, Solon, sand Lycurgus.