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- Herausgeber: L'Oliveto Publisher
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
What is money really? Where does its power come from? And what does its future hold?
“History of Money” is a fascinating and rigorous journey through the evolution of one of the most influential tools in human history. From the shells used in early tribal communities to the digital currencies of the 21st century, this essay explores the cultural, economic, political, and ethical transformations that have shaped money, showing how each form of currency reflects a specific worldview.
Organized into 20 thematic chapters, the book interweaves historical analysis, philosophical reflections, concrete examples, and future scenarios, guiding the reader through a narrative that is at once informative, profound, and accessible. Key milestones are explored: the invention of metal money, the birth of banks, the debt economy, cryptocurrencies, ethical finance, social currencies, and the emerging concept of the relationship economy.
But this book is not just a story of the past: it is also a call to rethink money today. It asks us what values it conveys, what dynamics it obeys, and what possibilities it can open up for us. It is a work that challenges the reader to imagine a new monetary paradigm that is more equitable, sustainable, and humane.
“The History of Money” is a book for anyone who wants to better understand how the world works—and how it could work differently.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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HISTORY OF MONEY
The invisible power that rules the world
HISTORY OF MONEY
The invisible power that rules the world
Index
CHAPTER 1: Bartering – The origins of exchange
CHAPTER 2: The first forms of money – Objects of value
CHAPTER 3: The birth of money – The Lydian revolution
CHAPTER 4: Greece and money – From the polis to the economy
CHAPTER 5: Rome and money – The economic empire
CHAPTER 6: The rebirth of money – The commercial Middle Ages and banks
CHAPTER 7: The State and money – Debt, sovereignty and control
CHAPTER 8: The Future of Money – Scenarios, Utopias and Risks
CHAPTER 9: Crisis, inflation and trust – The fragility of money
CHAPTER 10: Money and value – Ethics, culture and psychology of wealth
CHAPTER 11: Income, work and money – Transformations of value in the contemporary world
CHAPTER 12: Complementary currencies – Beyond official money
CHAPTER 13: Money and power – Sovereignty and control in monetary history
CHAPTER 14: Crisis and inflation – When money loses trust
CHAPTER 15: Digital currency – Towards a new economic paradigm
CHAPTER 16: The future of money – Between utopia, crisis and regeneration
CHAPTER 17: Cryptoanarchy, Decentralized finance and digital sovereignty
CHAPTER 18: Commons, social currencies and the economy of relationships
CHAPTER 19: The ethics of money – Value, responsibility and awareness
CHAPTER 20: Towards a new monetary imagination – Conclusions and future prospects
landmarks
Title page
Cover
Index
Book start
CHAPTER 1: Bartering – The origins of exchange
At the dawn of human civilization, when words were still disconnected sounds and writing had not yet found its alphabet, there already existed an idea that would define the destiny of humanity: exchange. Even before currency, even before the very concept of 'money', people related to each other through what they owned, measuring the value of things according to need, scarcity and difficulty in obtaining them. There were no banks, no accounts, no ingots. Only outstretched hands and watchful eyes.
The first human groups – nomadic tribes, settled clans, pastoral communities – did not need money to survive. Their economy was direct: food for tools, skins for instruments, grain for livestock. If one family had hunted a deer and another had grown a crop of barley, exchange was natural, often regulated by mutual respect or urgent need. This is how bartering came about, not as an economic system in the modern sense of the term, but as a vital necessity.
But bartering was not as simple as we might imagine. The effectiveness of an exchange depended on what we would now call a 'coincidence of needs': I must want what you offer, and you must want what I have. This seemingly trivial limitation was the first real obstacle to the development of the economy. What happens if I have fish to trade, but you, who have the honey I want, do not need my fish?
To overcome these problems, communities developed primitive forms of value standardization. Some goods were recognized as more easily exchangeable than others – rock salt, wheat, rare shells – because they were in high demand. These 'universal goods' began to take on the role that would later become that of money. This is where the concept of 'medium of exchange' was born.
In the heart of the Fertile Crescent, as early as 3000 BC, ancient Sumerian tribes exchanged measured quantities of barley for copper tools or animals. Scribes engraved the first records on clay tablets, using cuneiform to mark who owed what to whom. It was the first seed of accounting. But the system remained rudimentary: there was still no abstract, numerical value attributed to objects. Value was inseparable from context, season and hunger.
In Egypt, cow hides served as units of account. In the Mayan world, cocoa beans were so valuable that they were used as currency. In West Africa, cowrie shells remained a widespread medium of exchange for centuries. These objects shared portability, durability and social recognition of their value. They were a proto-currency, yet the heart of the system remained based on agreement between the parties.
Barter, however, also had a deep social dimension. Exchange was not only economic: it was relational, ritual, even spiritual. In many cultures, especially tribal ones, exchange between families or clans consolidated alliances, sanctioned marriages and pacified conflicts. Giving and receiving were acts laden with meaning. People gave to build bonds, not just to satisfy immediate needs.
An extraordinary example comes from the 'potlatch' system practiced by the indigenous peoples of the north-western coast of America. In these ceremonies, a tribal chief would give enormous quantities of goods to other clans, sometimes to the point of impoverishing himself, in order to demonstrate power and prestige. Those who received were socially obliged to reciprocate in equal or greater measure in the future. It was a gift economy that anticipated, in an almost poetic way, the idea of social debt.
But even in the absence of formal ceremonies, moral debt was implicit: those who received something knew they had to give something back, even if only in the future, in other forms of help or exchange. There were no interest rates or written deadlines, but the concept of mutual trust was essential. This concept evolved over the following millennia to become the basis of modern credit.
Thus, in the twilight of early civilizations, between the fires of caves and the first mud and wood houses, bartering laid the invisible foundations of money. There were no banknotes or currencies, but all the essential components were already there: the need to exchange, the recognition of value, the willingness to trust others. It was the beginning of a long journey that would forever transform the way we live, buy, sell – in short, the way we make sense of value.
As the Neolithic age progressed and human communities transitioned from nomadic to sedentary, bartering began to take on increasingly complex forms. Agricultural production, animal domestication and the construction of permanent settlements not only led to a surplus of goods, but also to a growing need to manage their redistribution. In this context, bartering evolved from occasional exchanges to a central tool of social organization.
The first markets developed in the civilizations that arose along the great rivers – the Tigris and Euphrates, the Nile, the Indus and the Yellow River. These places, initially simple meeting places, soon became hubs of economic activity. Here, farmers, craftsmen and shepherds met, bringing with them the products of their labor to exchange for those they needed. Thus, economic specialization was born, in which each person produced what they did best, relying on the market to obtain everything else.
This process was fundamental to the development of ancient civilizations. A potter did not need to produce bread if he could exchange his pots for a baker's loaves. The copper craftsman could obtain grain, oil, flax or wine without cultivating a field. Barter fuelled interdependence, and with it social cohesion. However, the more markets grew, the clearer it became how inefficient it was to base everything on the coincidence of needs.
Another limitation of bartering was the difficulty of comparative evaluation. How much fish is a jar worth? How many baskets of barley are a blanket worth? The lack of a standard measure made every exchange a complex negotiation, often a source of dispute. Those who were more skilled at persuasion or calculation were able to gain an advantage, while others, less experienced, ended up losing out in the implicit balance of the exchange. The subjectivity of value was a constant problem.
It is no coincidence, then, that many societies have sought since ancient times to establish units of account even in the absence of currency. In Mesopotamia, for example, a measure called the 'shekel' was used, which initially indicated a standard weight of barley, then of silver. Although not yet a minted currency, this unit made it possible to assign a measurable value to different goods, facilitating mutual evaluation.
Over time, this need for standardization led to greater formalization of trade. Religious or political authorities – priests, kings, clan leaders – began to set public exchange rates: a skin was worth ten baskets of wheat, a jar was worth three fish, and so on. These lists were the first forms of economic codification, anticipating legal codes which, like the famous Code of Hammurabi, would integrate economic rules into the fundamental laws of the state.
A significant step forward was taken when exchanges began to take place through third parties, in the form of credit. If the baker did not have an immediate need for the shepherd's wool, he could still give him bread 'on credit', trusting that he would receive something useful in return in the future. Thus, an embryonic form of credit trust was born, regulated not by banks but by reputation. Those who kept their promises enjoyed respect and credibility, while those who cheated or failed to fulfil their commitments were excluded from trade.
The social value of trust was so important that it was often more decisive than the material value of the object exchanged. In some cultures, such as the Bantu people' , personal and family honor constituted a real economic guarantee. In the absence of institutionalized coercive systems, reputation served as an invisible currency.
Under these conditions, economic relations also became power relations. Those who possessed the most sought-after goods held influence. Those who had access to scarce resources, such as salt in the Sahara or copper in Anatolia, became central figures in trade and, often, in political power. The barter economy was thus intertwined with the dynamics of social hierarchy: surplus became a political lever.
Time also began to take on economic value. Deferred exchange meant that what was worth something today could be worth less – or more – tomorrow. A primitive perception of risk and speculation was born. If a bumper crop reduced the value of grain, a shrewd shepherd might choose not to trade immediately, waiting for grain to become scarce again.
Along the oldest trade routes – such as those between the Persian Gulf and the Indus Valley, or between the Iranian Plateau and Egypt – the first interregional exchange networks developed. In these contexts, bartering no longer took place only between individuals but between communities, cities and peoples. Every interaction became an opportunity for mutual learning, but also for tension. The need for a common economic language was now evident. The seeds of currency were ready to sprout.
But before this happened, bartering reached its peak. Between 5000 and 1000 BC, highly developed exchange systems can be traced that, even without money, supported complex economies. In Mari, Ebla and Uruk, cuneiform tablets bear witness to detailed transactions, debts, credits and guarantees. Barter had become a sophisticated economic language, but it was no longer sufficient to sustain the expansion of trade relations.
And so, as merchants crossed deserts and seas, and temples became the first 'guardians' of collective wealth, human thought began to conceive a revolutionary idea: an object that could represent everything, be worth something at all times and in all places. A universal symbol and of value. No longer just goods to be exchanged, but a concept to be spent. Money was just around the corner.
In the heart of the first city-states, bartering had already taken on functions far more complex than a simple exchange of goods. It was no longer just bread for oil or livestock for cloth: bartering became a constituent element of the social order, a mechanism that held the community together but at the same time revealed its limitations. The more complex civilizations became, the greater the need for tools that could measure, record and guarantee value.
In this context, the first institutions of economic control were born. In Sumerian temples, priests recorded debts on clay tablets and stored food reserves or materials intended for exchange. More advanced cities, such as Ur and Lagash, organized actual 'stock houses', proto-banking centers where goods were accumulated, managed and redistributed according to established rules.
But it was not just a question of logistics: ritual exchange was laden with religious significance. In many ancient cultures, giving something was not just an economic act, but an offering to the divine. In Pharaonic Egypt, part of the grain harvested by farmers was destined for temples, not only as a tax, but as a sacred repayment for gifts received from the gods – rain, harvests, fertility. This link between bartering and the sacred led to the emergence of an early form of theocratic economy, where spiritual and economic power overlapped.
However, this system was highly hierarchical. The priestly or military elite managed the flow of goods, controlling what was exchanged and under what conditions. Economic relations became asymmetrical, with a gradual accumulation of power in the hands of a few. Bartering, which began as a form of exchange between equals, began to reflect structures of domination. Redistribution, which was initially mutual, became a tool of control.
The same logic can be found in many civilizations. In the Inca Empire, for example, bartering was organized collectively: local communities ( , or ayllu) contributed to production and received according to their needs. But it was the state, through its officials, that managed the central warehouse. In China, during the Xia and Shang dynasties, the authorities recorded debts in oral or symbolic form. Community memory played a crucial role, because the given word had binding force.
Even the word itself became a guarantee. In many archaic languages, the roots of the words 'debt' and 'fault' were the same. In Indo-European languages, for example, 'debitum' in Latin has the same meaning as 'moral obligation'. Barter was not just an economic transaction: it was a moral commitment, a social pact between individuals, families and communities. Breaking that agreement meant breaking the social balance.
This strong link between ethics and exchange created a network of mutual obligations which, however effective, became unsustainable on a large scale. As societies grew, direct relationships between all members of the community were no longer possible. Bartering required direct knowledge, reputation and personal trust. But how could this be managed in a city of thousands of inhabitants, or in an empire stretching thousands of kilometers?
The increase in transactions, the variety of goods and the distance between the parties involved made it clear that an intermediate system was needed, one capable of representing value in a universal, transportable and divisible way. This awareness developed gradually, but it paved the way for a fundamental conceptual leap: the idea of representing value through a symbolic object.
However, before arriving at actual currency, many cultures relied on privileged exchange goods: salt in some parts of Africa and Europe, tea in China, iron among the Etruscans. These goods had common characteristics: they were difficult to obtain, useful, durable, and above all socially recognized as instruments of exchange.
It is interesting to note how, in different times and places, cultures with no contact with each other arrived at similar solutions. In Micronesia, for example, the people of the island of Yap used limestone discs (rai stones) that were so large that they could not be moved. Ownership was established orally and accepted by the entire community. Although the physical object did not move or be , its value changed hands – an idea surprisingly similar to modern fiat currency.
Barter, therefore, did not disappear with the advent of money, but rather constitutes its historical and conceptual foundation. Every element we associate with money today – trust, symbol, shared value, representation – was already present, in embryonic form, in barter. The main difference lies in abstraction: money makes value transferable without having to embody it in a physical good of immediate utility.
Ultimately, bartering was humanity's economic training ground, where human beings learned the rules of exchange, balance and trust. But like any training ground, it had its limits. And it was precisely those limits that made possible the birth of one of the most powerful tools ever conceived: money.
The world of bartering was never uniform. Every culture and every people adapted the principle of exchange to their own geographical, climatic, spiritual and organizational contexts. This variety of models gives us a fascinating and dynamic picture of the past, in which human ingenuity, even without money, was able to build complex and often extraordinarily sophisticated economic systems.
In pre-Columbian Andean civilization, for example, bartering was an integral part of what could be described as a reciprocal and redistributive economy. Collective work – the minka – was the basis of agricultural production and construction, and products were redistributed by the ruling class according to need. No money circulated, but the entire society was organized around a complex system of obligations and reciprocity, based on work and the exchange of goods. Every family participated and received according to a communal logic. Trust was the invisible cornerstone of this order.
At the opposite extreme, in the Sumerian kingdom, bartering took on more bureaucratic and hierarchical features. Temples were not only religious centers but also the beating hearts of economic activity. They accumulated agricultural surpluses, organized the exchange of resources between villages and managed a proto-accounting system with precise records on clay tablets. Some of these tablets, found in Uruk and Lagash, record exchanges of grain, wool, oil and metals according to standard exchange rates. The function of writing arose precisely from the need to record transactions, marking an irreversible turning point in human history. In the nomadic cultures of Central Asia, where sedentary life was rare and contact between groups was sporadic, bartering adapted to the rhythms of migration and the needs of survival. Caravans crossing the steppes exchanged furs, salt, weapons and horses. The value was set on a case-by-case basis, often according to rituals that strengthened trust between the parties. In these contexts, the ability to negotiate and keep one's word was a crucial social skill that determined alliances and survival.
In the Mediterranean basin, on the other hand, maritime routes allowed 'international' bartering to flourish before its time. The Mycenaeans traded with the Egyptians, the Cretans with the Phoenicians, and the Greeks with the Anatolians. In the absence of currency, trade relations were regulated by political and religious agreements, exchanges of gifts, and marriages between powerful families. Diplomacy was intertwined with the economy. Every shipment that arrived in port was a symbol of power, prestige and openness. Bartering became a geopolitical tool.
The case of Oceania cultures is also very interesting. In Papua New Guinea, the societies of the Trobriand Islands practiced a system called Kula, a ceremonial exchange of red shell necklaces ( soulava) and white shell bracelets ( mwali), which took place in a closed circuit between specific islands. The objects were not used to purchase material goods, but to strengthen alliances and consolidate tribal status and identity. The symbolic exchange was so important that relations between islands were based almost exclusively on these ritual objects. The value was not intrinsic, but social and narrative: each necklace had a history, a lineage, an honor to be preserved.
This brings us to a fundamental aspect of bartering: value was never absolute, but culturally defined. In one region, dried fish could be worth as much as a goat skin, while elsewhere a handful of salt could have the same value as an axe. There was no global market, but multiple economic microcosms that reflected human diversity. Today, in terms of ' ', we could say that value was 'local' and 'relational', not universal and numerical.
This does not mean that these societies were 'primitive' in a negative sense. On the contrary, they managed to maintain remarkable efficiency and stability. In many African regions, bartering remained the main means of exchange until the 20th century, even after the introduction of colonial currency. Even today, in contexts of economic crisis or lack of trust in institutions, bartering is re-emerging as an alternative form of solidarity economy, a symbol of resilience and creativity.
In the modern world, where everything seems virtual, fluid and digital, the return to bartering in certain communities represents a need for human reconnection. Experiences such as swap markets, time banks and urban solidarity economy circuits are inspired by this ancient practice, transforming it into a conscious and alternative choice.
Bartering, therefore, does not belong only to the past. It is a permanent dimension of the human economy, which re-emerges when the pillars of the official system collapse, or when an ethical and sustainable alternative is sought. Its history, although often underestimated, constitutes the cultural and emotional foundation of the very concept of value.
And so, in every civilization, bartering has taught people that nothing has value in itself unless there is agreement, trust and relationship. It is from this teaching that the most revolutionary idea of all will emerge: that an object, chosen by everyone, can represent everything. Money is about to be born.
Over the millennia, human beings have perfected the practice of exchange as an immediate response to a need for survival, but also as a tool for defining identity, hierarchies and relationships. Bartering, in all its forms, was the first concrete manifestation of the economic dimension of human beings. It was born with humanity and has walked alongside it, adapting to its social, political and cultural transformations.
Every object exchanged in barter was much more than just a commodity. It was a bridge. A symbol of trust, reciprocity and connection. The exchange was never neutral: it was laden with expectations, history and honor. And it is precisely this symbolic dimension that would form the conceptual basis for the invention of money. When value ceases to be linked to the object itself and is transferred to the shared recognition of that value, something new is born: a universal economic language.
This transition was neither sudden nor uniform. There was no specific day when people stopped bartering and started using coins. The birth of money was a gradual, cumulative and complex process. It required mental and social maturation: the willingness to accept that an object with no direct use value could have universal use value. In other words, it took a symbolic leap.
That leap became possible only when three conditions were met simultaneously:
A broad social consensus on what value should represent;
A physical object that was durable, divisible, transportable and rare;
A recognized authority capable of guaranteeing the authenticity and stability of that object.
All these conditions were met for the first time in Asia Minor, in a little-known but extraordinarily influential kingdom: Lydia. Here, around the 7th century BC, the first minted metal coins appeared, made of electrum – a natural alloy of gold and silver – and guaranteed by the authority of the sovereign. These coins were no longer goods to be used or consumed. They were symbols. They represented a conventional value, accepted by all and guaranteed by the central power.
But before reaching this turning point, bartering had already left a profound legacy. It had taught us to treat value as a relationship, not just a quantity. It had shown us the importance of trust, collective memory and reputation. It had created fertile ground on which the idea of a structured economy capable of sustaining empires, wars, markets, commercial empires and technological revolutions would sprout.
Even today, at the heart of digital capitalism, the dynamics of bartering survive in the unofficial circuits of the economy: in favors between friends, in exchanges in online groups, in 'I'll give you a hand if you give me one'. Barter- s are not just a relic of the past: they are an ancestral and universal form of economic communication, a human way of relating to need and abundance.
We can therefore say that bartering was not superseded by currency, but transformed. Its logic, principles and tensions were transferred to the new instrument. And while the ancient world began to embrace the revolutionary idea that value could be represented by a symbol – a coin – bartering gave way, but did not disappear. It remained latent, ready to re-emerge in times of crisis, transformation and rebirth.
Thus ends the history of bartering as the founding phase of the human economy. A history made up of trust, ingenuity and necessity. A history that set the stage for the protagonist who would soon enter the scene with extraordinary power: money.
And it was precisely from the transformation of shared value, the need for a universal instrument and the desire of the central power to guarantee its acceptance that one of the most influential inventions in human history took shape: money.
CHAPTER 2: The first forms of money – Objects of value
Before humanity invented money in the modern sense, many societies relied on goods that, due to their specific characteristics, began to circulate as monetary equivalents. These objects were not yet 'money' in the technical sense of the term – they were not minted, they had no value imposed by a central authority – but they were universally accepted within a community to facilitate exchange, representing shared value.
What these objects had in common was a set of essential qualities: rarity, utility, durability, portability and social recognition. The most effective goods as exchange instruments were not the most abundant, but those that combined desirability and difficulty of acquisition. In a world still dominated by local production and self-sufficiency, owning something that everyone wanted but few could obtain immediately conferred economic power.
One of the earliest historical examples was the use of salt. In many cultures, salt was essential not only for food preservation but also for human and animal health. In regions where it was not easily found, such as inland Africa or the Alpine areas of Europe, salt became a primary h r exchange good. The Romans even paid part of their legionaries' wages in salt, hence the word 'salary'. Salt thus perfectly combined use value and exchange value.
In West Africa, cowrie shells played a similar role. Small, shiny and beautiful, they came from the waters of the Indian Ocean and were transported along caravan routes across the Sahara desert to the civilizations of the Sahel and Central Africa. Precisely because they were not native to those places, these shells took on symbolic and commercial value. They were accepted everywhere, as if they were real currency. In some African kingdoms, there were even official exchange rates between cowrie shells and goods or services.
On the American continent, before the arrival of Europeans, cocoa beans played this role. For the Maya and Aztecs, cocoa had religious, nutritional and economic value. The seeds were used to prepare sacred drinks, offered to the gods or consumed during noble ceremonies. But they were also accumulated and exchanged: ten cocoa beans were enough to buy a prostitute, a hundred for a young slave. The use of cocoa as 'currency' was so widespread that the Spanish conquistadors adopted it temporarily in the early stages of colonization.
In China, tea was one of the most widely used commodities for centuries. In pressed form, tea travelled along the Tea and Horse Road, reaching Tibet, Mongolia and Russia. Each tea brick was weighed, stamped and stacked: it was used to pay taxes, salaries and dowries. In the Tang dynasty, some areas accepted tea as official currency. Its immediate usefulness as a beverage and the difficulty of processing it made it valuable and long-lasting.
But of all the ancient civilizations, it was perhaps Mesopotamia that developed the most organized forms of monetary equivalents before the introduction of minted coins. There, barley – the main agricultural crop – was used as a unit of account to establish the value of other goods. Temples, the centers of the city's economy, held huge reserves of barley and metals that were used to pay for labor, organize trade, finance and construction. There were even advance payments, equivalent to loans, with repayment due after the harvest.
Alongside barley, unminted silver also began to be used as a means of payment. It is often found in archaeological sites in the form of ingots, bracelets, rings and broken fragments, weighed with precision scales, suggesting that the concept of 'weight for value' was already well established. This system, known as the 'bullion economy', represents a fundamental step towards the emergence of actual currency.
The case of ceremonial bronze axes used in ancient China during the Shang and Zhou periods is also interesting. Although not useful in the field, they were forged in a standardized manner and exchanged between aristocrats and officials. Their value was recognized not for their function, but for their symbolism. This shows that the pre-monetary economy was not devoid of abstraction, but practiced it in a material and ritual form.
In many of these cultures, the state or the ruling elite gradually began to regulate the use of these objects, to certify them, to determine their weight or quality. This paved the way for the final transition: the institutionalization of value through coinage. When the object is no longer sufficient to guarantee trust and there is a need for a recognized authority to certify its value, then money begins to emerge in earnest.
These early forms of money were therefore cultural tools before they were economic ones. They were not invented by bankers, but by peoples seeking better ways to live together, to trade without conflict, to create order in exchange. Each of these objects tells a story of civilization, made up of journeys, rituals and symbolic choices.
Before a coin was minted, the world was already ready to accept its logic. People had already learned to think of value as a shared symbol. It was only a matter of time before that symbol became metal, marked by an authority and destined to change the history of the world forever.
The moment when humanity began to conceive of value no longer as an intrinsic property of an object but as a shared abstract representation marked one of the greatest cognitive revolutions in history. The symbolic function, already evident in pre-monetary objects of exchange, began to take on a systemic meaning: it was no longer what the object was that mattered, but what it represented.
This transition was made possible by three converging historical processes. The first was the growing complexity of urban societies. In densely populated environments, with ever-higher levels of specialization, the multiplicity of goods and services made the logic of bartering unsustainable. The second was the expansion of long-distance trade, which required more convenient, standardizable and transportable means of payment. The third, and perhaps most decisive, was the emergence of centralized powers – kings, dynasties, supreme priests – capable of imposing common symbols.
