Bronze Age: Early precursors of the Euro

“Money, money, money, must be funny – in a rich man’s world,” sang Abba in their heyday, and that’s how it has been since the universal means of payment was invented in Mesopotamia around 5,000 years ago. They were not yet coins, but so-called hacksilver, the value of which was measured in weight. The prerequisite for this was the invention of balance scales in order to exclude errors and fraud.

While individual trade was already flourishing in the Fertile Crescent, archaeologists previously assumed that Europe was far behind economically and intellectually. There was lively long-distance trade and luxury goods were exchanged. According to the theory, trade was controlled by the local elites who had the necessary power and economic resources. In return for the economic monopoly, the chiefs, priests, or whoever was in control, distributed goods to their population. However, this assumption contradicts actual practices, such as the fur trade in North America between indigenous hunters and European traders or trade between families on the islands of the Pacific.

Standard weight of ten grams

A research group from the Universities of Göttingen and Sapienza in Rome was interested in this contradiction and over several years collected all available information about so-called Bronze Age hoards that were made in Central Europe and Italy. In archeology, hoards or depot finds refer to buried things that are neither grave goods nor settlement remains. The scientists led by Dr. Nicola Ialongo was struck by the fact that this bronze scrap obviously followed a standard of ten grams or a multiple of this in terms of weight. They analyzed and systematized 1,331 hoards with a total of 23,711 bronze pieces. The deviations were no greater than five percent and therefore neither noticeable nor measurable using the methods of the time.

The hoard finds are all between 1500 and 800 BC. C.E. dated when the Bronze Age was at its peak. By this time the balance scale had found its way to Europe and made standardization possible. “Paying with pieces of metal was not primitive, because this type of money – before coins were invented – fulfilled exactly the same functions as modern money today,” says Dr. Nicola Ialongo. »Perishable goods were probably used as currency long before metallurgy was discovered. But the real turning point came when people in the Middle East invented weighing weight around 3000 BC. For the first time in human history, an objective means was available to quantify the economic value of things and services, i.e. to assign a price to them.

Bronze recognized at local markets

In contrast to the Middle East, there were no state-like structures in Europe at this time, and individual rich chiefs cannot explain the many hoards found far from settlements. They have previously been interpreted as offerings to the gods or metal reserves for the future. But, the researchers reasoned, why does the bronze scrap have a standardized weight and the pieces in the individual hoards don’t match? This suggests that they circulated across time and space before being buried. Their weight and the value of labor that had to be invested in their extraction made them a desirable possession by which other goods could be measured.

The scientists therefore used modern economic theories to correlate the distribution of the finds and the mass of the individual bronze pieces. Their conclusion: Certainly there were wealthy individuals, but trade was determined by the demand of European households and their ability to produce other goods. The bronze pieces were recognized by the local population over a large area as the equivalent of livestock, grain, wool or even luxury goods in the local markets, just as is done today with euros, pounds or dollars. This does not exclude the possibility that barter continued to exist, but the commodity-money relationship had found its way into Europe.