Weighing the Age of Money

Traditional monetary theory holds that numismatics are the earliest currency used by humans. Before humans invented coins, commodity exchange was based on the primitive barter method of barter.

What this book is about is that in the long years before the invention of numismatic coins, there was an era of commodity exchange using weighing money as the medium - the era of weighing money.

The ancient People of the Two Rivers Valley recorded in cuneiform on clay tablets the details of the use of weighing currency by humans in ancient times. The use of weighing money was found in the codes of the unearthed Dynasties of West Asia and in various private law documents signed by generations of people, thus providing us with reliable information from ancient times. Not only did ancient Asia have a long era of weighing money, but also ancient China in the East, ancient India in South Asia, and ancient Egypt in North Africa, all had a long era of weighing money. Examining the development process of the world's four major civilizations, ancient documentary records, and unearthed weighing weights have proved the existence of the era of weighing money for us, and made us realize that the development of weighing money produces quantitative money - coins, which is the universal law of human monetary development.

Traditional monetary theory holds that numismatics (quantitative currencies) are the earliest currencies used by humans. Before humans invented coins, commodity exchange was the primitive barter method of barter.

What this book wants to illustrate is that in the long years before the invention of numismatics by humans, the exchange of commodities in human society adopted the exchange method of weighing money as the medium, and at the same time there was a barter exchange method.

Weighing currency is a type of currency relative to quantitative currency, which is different from quantitative currency, which needs to be weighed when trading and uses, and relies on the value of the currency to play the function of currency; Quantitative currencies do not need to be weighed when used in transactions, relying on the credit of the issuer to perform monetary functions. Intuitively understand the weighing currency, the broken silver of the Ming and Qing dynasties in China is the weighing currency, and the weighing unit mainly uses "two" and "money"; The broken silver of the ancient Babylonian Kingdom in the Two Rivers Valley was also weighed currency, and the units of weighing were mainly "Mina", "Shekele" and "Udtu". Intuitively understand the quantity currency, ancient Chinese copper coins and modern paper money, are both quantitative currencies, trading use does not need to be weighed, relying on the issuer's credit to play the monetary function.

In modern times, the codes and contract documents written in the cuneiform script of the Two Rivers Basin have recorded a large number of decrees and trading activities about the use of silver by the ancient West Asians to weigh money. These accounts occur more than 1,000 years before humans invented coins.

The national statutory unified weighing unit and weighing unit standard is a necessary condition for the birth of weighing currency. When special commodities acting as general equivalents in commodity exchange obtain the national legally unified standards for weighing units and weighing units, special commodities acting as general equivalents are converted into weighing currency.

The whole time process from the birth of the self-proclaimed quantity currency to the invention of the quantity currency ——— coin is the era of weighing money.

The era of weighing money is the most magnificent era of the development of human civilization. In this era, the ancient civilizations of the world have created the most basic means of production, means of exchange, cultural norms and social organizations on which human beings can enter civilization. At this time, there was no coin, only the commodity exchange mode of weighing money as a medium and the commodity exchange method of bartering in parallel.

The history of the development of money is the evolutionary process of transforming from a special commodity that acts as a general equivalent to a weighing currency, then from a weighing currency to a primitive quantity currency, and finally from a primitive quantity currency to a quantitative currency.

The Ancients of Asia recorded in cuneiform details of the use of weighing currency in ancient times. Whether other ancient civilizations in the world have also experienced the era of weighing money requires more in-depth research and examination. Taking the four ancient civilizations as an example, the paths of civilization development of various countries have quite obvious similarities. The pace of the development of civilization in various countries has a fairly obvious synchronization.

From the perspective of world history, commodity exchange is based on the development of agrarian civilization and the establishment of forms of national social organization.

Agrarian civilization brought stable life to mankind, promoted the formation of the family and private property, and created the necessary conditions for commodity exchange. The rise of commodity exchange has led to the social division of labor and the improvement of labor productivity, resulting in the differentiation of the rich and the poor. The rise of commodity exchange and the deepening of the divide between the rich and the poor promoted the transformation of human social organization from communes to tribes or city-states. The increasingly fierce competition for wealth has fueled wars of annexation between tribes or city-states, unifying many tribes or city-states into states. The emergence of the form of national social organization has unified the traditional weighing units and weighing unit standards of various tribes or city-states, so that special commodities that act as general equivalents in commodity exchange are transformed into weighing currency of the national statutory unified weighing standards.

From 8000 BC to 3000 BC, the Chinese nation in the Yellow River Basin was in the development period of matriarchal clan communes, and an agricultural civilization emerged, which developed to 2070 BC, giving rise to the form of state social organization established by Qi——— Xia Dynasty. From 4300 BC to 3500 BC, the Sumerians of the Two Rivers Valley mastered the more advanced agricultural irrigation technology, which developed to 2369 BC, producing the form of state social organization established by Sargon——— the Akkadian Kingdom. From 7000 BC to 4500 BC, the ancient Egyptians in the Nile Valley saw the emergence of an agrarian civilization, which developed to 3050 BC, producing a form of state social organization established by NARMER——— the First Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. The ancient Indians of the Indus Valley saw the emergence of an agrarian civilization from 2500 BC to 1750 BC, entered the Bronze Age, and built many towns. However, ancient India was slow to develop and was in a state of division for a long time, until 324 BC, when the peacock dynasty, the first unified form of state social organization in Indian history, established by Jandhara Gupta———, was born.

It can be seen from this that the four ancient civilizations of the world have obvious similarities and synchronizations in the development of agricultural civilizations and the establishment of national social organizations. The difference is that the ancient West Asian people used clay plates to transmit the information of the time, while the ancient text carriers of other ancient civilizations have been decayed by time without a trace.

The absence of detailed records left by ancient texts does not mean that there is no existence and development of ancient civilizations. Based on the literature of the ancient Chinese nation, ancient Egypt, and ancient India, as well as the information transmitted by the excavated weighing weights, the four ancient civilizations had an almost synchronous era of weighing money. After about a thousand years of development, the weighing currencies of the four ancient civilizations have produced quantitative currencies ——— coins almost simultaneously.

Coins are produced on the basis of weighing currency, and generally inherit the names and weighing standards of the previous weighing currency units. After the invention of numismatics, the commodity exchange method using weighing money as the medium still existed, and it was parallel to the commodity exchange method with the numismatic medium and the commodity exchange method by barter.

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