The World’s First Money is Older than You Think

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Is it possible that the societies of bronze age central Europe, almost four thousand years ago, were using small metal bars and rings as their money? They cast vast numbers of intriguing metal objects in the shapes of bars and rings. Dating to between about 2000 BC and 1600 BC, these are found buried in hoards right across Central Europe. And some scholars believe that these bars and rings actually functioned as money in this ancient society. This is over a thousand years before the first coins in the world were made in the kingdom of Lydia in western Anatolia. This is the incredible story of the first money in bronze age central Europe.

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Sources

The Oxford Handbook of the European Bronze Age: https://amzn.to/3ClL8YR

Kuijpers MHG, Popa CN (2021) The origins of money: Calculation of similarity indexes demonstrates the earliest development of commodity money in prehistoric Central Europe. PLoS ONE 16(1): e0240462
M. Junk, R. Krause and E. Pernicka (2001) Ösenringbarren and the Classical Ösenring Copper
Kuijpers MHG. The Bronze Age, a World of Specialists? Metalworking from the Perspective of Skill and Material Specialization. European Journal of Archaeology. 2018;21(4):550-571. doi:10.1017/eaa.2017.59

Prehistoric Copper Mining in Europe: https://amzn.to/3vw0Omp
A History of Metallurgy: https://amzn.to/3s2Go1Y
Metals Make the World Go Round: https://amzn.to/3KtR9B4

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Video Chapters

00:00 The First Metal Money in the World
02:03 Opera Sponsorship
03:25 The Únětice culture
05:21 Bronze Hoards
06:33 Rib Ingots and Ring Ingots
07:41 Bronze Age Copper Ingots
09:02 What is Money?
10:00 The First Money?
15:32 The Origins of Money