Who Invented Money?
Money means different things to different people — to you it may mean coins, notes or credit cards. To some people in developing nations it may mean beads, shells, acorns or human toes. In short, money is whatever we think has value.
So Who Invented it?
The first written records of the use of money date from 1200BC, in the area of land now known as Southern Algeria, although then it was covered with water. Inscriptions in stones record that 'twelve shekels' were paid into the bank account belonging to Algar Hammurabi, in return for 'use of his daughter'. Twelve shekels in today's money would buy you hundreds of prostitutes, all better looking than Hammurabi's daughter, who was by all accounts rather dull.
But let us not get too carried away, because a monetary system existed long before Hammurabi's daughter was bought and sold. That was a system known as bartering.
Bartering
Bartering is the word we give to a system known as bartering. This involved exchanging goods rather than paying for them. Bartering was invented in Ancient Egypt around the time of Moses. It meant that, for instance, a bag of potatoes might be swapped for a tin of peaches, or a candle may be swapped for a brown shawl made out of potato sacking, or whatever it was they wore in those drab times. Legend has it that Marco Polo swapped his owls for a ship, without which he couldn't have circumnavigated right around the world, in 987AD.
Bartering is still alive and well today in the school playground — when you trade Pokémon cards for Smurfs or whatever crap you're into nowadays, you are bartering!
Coins
Algerian shekel (collection Jimmy Tarbuck)
What did a shekel look like? Well, some examples survive. They are large pieces of solid silver, about the size of a baby's kidney, inscribed with the face of the ruler of the time. They were worth about $700 (2 euros) each in today's money! When the Algerian Empire was overrun by Chinese around the time of Abraham, the coins became worthless.
However, the Chinese realised the enormous value of coinage but had no metal to make them, so instead they used reeds. One reed could be woven into an exquisite decorative coin, 2 inches in diameter (circumference). Now everyone in China became a billionaire, which lead to great economic prosperity, until the great reed disaster of 610BC. At this time goods were still manufactured but no-one could afford to buy them, until Emperor Xiang hit upon the idea of using rice. The Chinese word for rice — dulla — has become the familiar word 'pound' which is still used today.
Despite the Chinese, metal was the substance of choice for coin-making civilizations. The Nigerian Awaka people used coins made from strontium-190, until their race mysteriously disappeared around the time of Christ. When the Japanese invaded Africa they copied the idea, punching holes in their coins to ward off evil spirits. Not sure how that worked, but there you are.
Paper Money
The earliest banknote ever found.
Frustrated that they could not carry loose change in their togas, the Romans invented paper money around 1000AD. When Emperor Claudius ran out of money, he wrote IOU notes, promising that he would pay 100,000 lira (that's about 2 shillings) to his debtor. When Claudius fled to Spain around the time of Elija, he took the idea with him, and it was in Barcelona that the first true banknotes in the world were printed. To this day, Spanish notes carry the face of Claudius, who was known in those days as Miguel I.
(http://www.allworldknowledge.com/money/)
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An aside:
Money whether metal or paper by itself is worth nothing more tan the value of the metal or the piece of paper it is printed upon. It is the government backin. You may find that a currency note contained this promise in so many workds I promise to pay on demand the bear of this note the sume of rupees...It happened in India during the rule of the mad king Mohammed Tughluck who had many impracical scemes to his discredit. He sent a force across the Himalayas to conquer China all of which perished in the cold. He changed his capital from Delhi to Devgiri in the South.That was OK but he wanted all Delhits of the time including the beggars to shift to that place thousands of miles away from Delhi.and forced them to do so. With poor means of communication you can just imagine the plight. On arrival at Devgiri he soon found that there was woeful lack of civic facilities for such a crowd and pat came another fiat shifting the capital back to Delhi. Now coming to money he had heard of paper (reed)money in China. He introeuced copper money. At that time the mints were run privately. Soon copper coins came along . While government honoured them for the sum engraved on them and had its coffers full wih the worthless pieces of metal i and went bankrupt.Comrade Dange, the noted Communist leader in one of his books describes the pathetic effect of introduction of money in Greece to replace the barter system.Due to similar mismanagement of the monetary system entire communiies of people went bankrupt and were literally enslaved by the monetary sharks. In the post WWI Germany the Marc currency notes were chaper than coal for the stoves.
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2006-10-04 11:07:52
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answer #1
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answered by Prabhakar G 6
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Indians because they used shells, acorns, fur and etc. As curacy
2015-11-05 10:21:57
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answer #4
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answered by Jeremy 1
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