A small change revolution. Weight systems and the emergence of the first Pan-European money

Ialongo, Nicola; Lago, Giancarlo

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2021.105379

Cited by 10 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…This type of configuration can be seen, for example, in contemporaneous European balance weights, hoarded bronze fragments, or Mesopotamian silver (Pare 1999; Ialongo 2018; Ialongo et al . 2018; Ialongo & Lago 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Metal objects of regulated mass are a well-known phenomenon of European prehistory. A recent study of over 3000 bronze objects in European hoards has shown that they were fragmented into pieces of specific, regulated mass values in accordance with the metrological system of European Bronze Age balance weights (Ialongo & Lago 2021). Mass-regulation can also be found in hacksilver from early second-millennium BC Mesopotamia, where extensive written evidence has shown that silver was sometimes exchanged directly for goods and that the precious metal served as a general reference value in the economic framework of the ancient Near East (Pomponio 2003; Peyronel 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Weight regulation in British and Irish Bronze Age gold objects: a reanalysis and reinterpretation

Hermann

2022

Antiquity

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Sophisticated metrological systems were common in the European Bronze Age and mass-regulation has been argued for various classes of object, including gold artefacts. A recent study published in Antiquity used Cosine Quantogram Analysis to demonstrate mass-regulation in a small sample of gold objects from Britain, Ireland and France. Since then, substantial quantities of new data from British Bronze Age gold objects have been collated. Here, the author presents the results of Cosine Quantogram Analysis on nearly 1000 such objects—the largest sample analysed to date. The results demonstrate that, even though some regularities can be discerned, mass-regulation is no longer a tenable interpretation of gold objects from Bronze Age Britain.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Weight regulation in British and Irish Bronze Age gold objects: a reanalysis and reinterpretation

Hermann

2022

Antiquity

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“…It seems far more plausible that the metal in Bronze Age hoards continued to be deposited for social/ symbolic purposes, comparable to stone axes during the Neolithic (e.g., Delgado-Raack et al, 2020;Thirault, 2005), even as the scale of such interactions expanded considerably (Vandkilde, 2016). Ialongo and Lago (2021) explicitly argue that European hoards were amassed financial wealth. They state that "bronze in BA [Bronze Age] Europe had the same function as silver in BA Mesopotamia, and cuneiform texts attest that silver performed the basic function of modern money as early as the 3rd millennium BC" (Ialongo & Lago, 2021, 11)-so, therefore, what I term government financial money.…”

Section: Understanding European Bronze Age Moneymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such a characterization also ignores all heterodox economists, and especially chartalist scholars, who have a clear answer (e.g., Hudson, 2018;Ingham, 2004Ingham, , 2020. Ialongo and Lago's (2021) orthodox assumptions are precisely the theoretical blinders imposed by employing the "commonsense" ideas of what constitutes money with which I began this article. Orthodox assumptions likewise determine the selection of material indicators that structure their hypothesis testing.…”

Section: Four Problems With Interpreting European Hoards As Evidence ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding money; Or, why social and financial accounting should not be conflated

Rosenswig

2024

Economic Anthropology

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This article defines social and financial money as distinct institutions that account for different realms of value. I present a fundamental dichotomy among economists' where orthodox theory defines money as a medium of exchange whereas heterodox chartalist economists characterize it as a unit of account. I argue that (pre)historical data provides clear evidence in support of the heterodox position. The unit of account function of money is exemplified by how wampum accounted for social debts and was expanded to also serve financial functions by European colonial governments. The heterodox position is further evidenced with the metal coins that denominated Rome's financial money that transitioned to serve primarily social purposes in early Anglo‐Saxon Britain. Focusing on the accounting function of social and financial monies transcends the Polanyian special‐versus‐general‐purpose framework that often still structures archaeological practice. With this framework of money defined by what gives it value, I then evaluate recent claims that financial money was integral to the political economies of Bronze Age Europe. I conclude that the adoption of the orthodox assumption that money is primarily a medium of exchange inhibits understanding of what money is and how the political economies of ancient societies were organized.

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“…However, some presumed prehistoric monies were made of durable material, which allows us to test the hypothesis that some objects circulated as monies. Recently, studies on metal pre-coinage European monies from the second Millennium BC showed the possibility of applying statistical methods in recognition of ancient monetary systems (Kuijpers & Popa, 2021;Ialongo & Lago 2021). This paper discusses the possibility that pre-columbian Manteño-Huancavilca and Milagro-Quevedo (800-1532 b.C.)…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Money or ingots? Metrological research on pre-contact Ecuadorian ‘axe-monies’

Puente¹,

Lago

Cardarelli

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The Axe-monies, trapezoidal sheet objects made of arsenical copper, are associated with graves and hoards of the Manteño-Huancavilca (600–1532 A.D) and Milagro-Quevedo (400–1532 A.D.) cultures, both located in the coast of Ecuador. Historically, scholars identified these artifacts as monies, relating them to a currency system. This paper aims to test this hypothesis by searching for standardization analyzing an important sample of these objects. Metrological analyses on dimensions (length, width) and weight show that the currency hypothesis is flawed because neither apparent clustering of dimensions nor a tendency to a single (range of) weight value(s) is found. We suggest ‘axe-monies’ were used as ‘ingot-objects’ and copper was a commodity in the framework of exchanges involving different cultures throughout America's Pacific coast.

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A small change revolution. Weight systems and the emergence of the first Pan-European money

Cited by 10 publications

References 26 publications

Weight regulation in British and Irish Bronze Age gold objects: a reanalysis and reinterpretation

Weight regulation in British and Irish Bronze Age gold objects: a reanalysis and reinterpretation

Understanding money; Or, why social and financial accounting should not be conflated

Money or ingots? Metrological research on pre-contact Ecuadorian ‘axe-monies’

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