{"id":6342,"date":"2021-04-30T12:41:57","date_gmt":"2021-04-30T12:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/?p=6342"},"modified":"2021-05-13T16:54:31","modified_gmt":"2021-05-13T16:54:31","slug":"europes-first-common-money-was-bronze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/30\/europes-first-common-money-was-bronze\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe\u2019s first common money was bronze"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More than five thousand years before European states launched the euro, the region already had a single currency\u2014bronze.<\/p>\n<p>According to researchers Nicola Ialongo from G\u00f6ttingen University and Giancarlo Lago from the University of Rome, bronze served as a common pan-European money and helped boost trade networks across a region stretching from modern-day Ukraine to Iberia and the British isles.<\/p>\n<p><em>Bronze fragments from European hoards<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6341\" src=\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/bronze-hoard.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"850\" height=\"493\" srcset=\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/bronze-hoard.jpg 850w, https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/bronze-hoard-300x174.jpg 300w, https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/bronze-hoard-768x445.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Volker Minkus\/Thomas Terberger<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Although the bronze fragments dug up from hoards across Europe tended not to follow any particular design, the researchers found that the fragments tended to follow a standardised weight system, with most lumps of metal representing a multiple of around 10 grams of bronze (called a \u2018shekel\u2019).<\/p>\n<p>Weighing scales, invented in Mesopotamia around 3000BC, were used across Europe by 1000BC.<\/p>\n<p>Ialongo\u2019s and Lago\u2019s findings are published in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0305440321000492\">a new research paper<\/a> in the Journal of Archaeological Science.<\/p>\n<p>According to the researchers, bronze was used as a common currency in Europe around the same time as a silver standard reigned in the Near East.<\/p>\n<p>However, by comparison with silver, bronze had drawbacks as a monetary metal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we define as \u2018bronze\u2019 is an umbrella term for many different copper alloys, mostly containing variable proportions of tin and lead,\u201d the researchers write.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is theoretically possible that different alloys had different values, which could somehow hamper the circulation of metals as money.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, the use of these metals in trade also doubled European demand for them, say Ialongo and Lago, boosting the copper- and tin-mining industries in the regions that hosted them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStarting c.1350-1200BC, a surge of the demand for metal was satisfied by a limited number of specialised mining regions,\u201d Ialongo and Lago write.<\/p>\n<p>While copper was mined across Europe, tin was harder to find and its mining was concentrated in Cornwall, Brittany and North-Western Spain.<\/p>\n<p>The continent-wide circulation of bronze money also helped standardise weight systems, say the researchers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe widespread use of metals as media of exchange can also explain why local weight systems tend to converge on a continental scale,\u201d they say.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/eepurl.com\/du6eTr\">Sign up here<\/a> for the New Money Review newsletter<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/blubrry.com\/newmoneyreview\/\">Click here<\/a> for a full list of episodes of the New Money Review podcast: the future of money in 30 minutes<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Related content from <em>New Money Review<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/index.php\/2018\/04\/07\/freer-thinking-about-money\/\">Freer thinking about money<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/12\/how-identity-systems-create-financial-power\/\">How identity systems create financial power<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More than five thousand years before European states launched the euro, the region already had a single currency\u2014bronze. According to researchers Nicola Ialongo from G\u00f6ttingen University and Giancarlo Lago from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6341,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1013,1011],"tags":[2006,2005,2004],"class_list":{"0":"post-6342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-account","8":"category-value","9":"tag-bronze","10":"tag-giancarlo-lago","11":"tag-nicola-ialongo"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Europe\u2019s first common money was bronze - New Money Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Five thousand years before the euro, Europe already had a common currency: bronze\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/newmoneyreview.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/30\/europes-first-common-money-was-bronze\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Europe\u2019s first common money was bronze - 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