Era 02 · ~600 BC — 600 AD

Coined Metal

What backs it

Backed by weight

Pulse cycle

4.5s

Money became portable, durable, and unforgeable (in theory) when sovereigns started stamping their seal onto standardized metal. Lydia minted the first coins in the 7th century BC. Within two hundred years, coinage had spread from the Aegean to India to the Yellow River. Trust moved from the object to the ruler who minted it.

Events in this era

~600 BC

Lydian electrum coinage

The kingdom of Lydia, in modern-day western Turkey, minted the first standardized coins under King Alyattes and his son Croesus. The coins were lumps of electrum, a natural gold-silver alloy from the Pactolus River, stamped with a lion's head or paw. Weight and purity were guaranteed by the royal seal. Trade no longer required weighing metal at every transaction. Greek city-states copied the technique within decades, and by 550 BC Croesus had issued the first pure-gold and pure-silver coin pair.

Enabled Mediterranean trade economy

221 BC

Qin dynasty standardizes currency

After unifying the warring states in 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang abolished the regional coinages (knife money, spade money, shell imitations) and imposed a single coin: round, cast in bronze, with a square hole in the middle. The design was called 'banliang', meaning half-ounce. The square hole let coins be strung in groups of 1,000 for large transactions. That shape, the 'cash coin', remained the template for Chinese currency for more than 2,000 years, outlasting the Qing dynasty itself.

Unified Chinese commerce for two millennia

~269 BC

The Roman denarius

Rome introduced the silver denarius during the First Punic War. Remarkably stable for 400 years before being progressively debased from the 3rd century onward. It became the dominant coinage across the Mediterranean, the Near East, and as far east as India. Roman fiscal documents from the first century AD price everything from legionary salaries to imported silk in denarii.

Mediterranean economy unified under one currency

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