Eastern hacksilber from the Achaemenid Levant, including jewellery and Greek coins, 425-420 BC.Reference image by Classical Numismatic Group, Wikimedia Commons
Posted on 07/19/2021 8:35:04 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Silver sourced from the northern Mediterranean, as far away as the Iberian Peninsula, was used as a trade token throughout the region during the Late Bronze and Iron Age periods, with the supply slowing only occasionally.
This, according to a team of French, Israeli and Australian scientists and numismatists who found geochemical evidence that allowed them to reconstruct the eastern Mediterranean silver trade over a period including the traditional dates of the Trojan War, the founding of Rome and the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem.
...the researchers explained that they used high-precision isotopic analysis to identify the ore sources of minute lead traces found in hacksilber.
Hacksilber is an irregularly cut silver bullion including broken pieces of silver ingots and [jewelry] that served as means of payment in the southern Levant from the beginning of the second millennium until the fourth century BCE. Used in local and international transactions, its value was determined by weighing it on scales against standardized weights...
The samples included finds from “En Gedi, Ekron, and Megiddo” (also known as Armageddon). They matched their findings with ore samples, and have shown that most of the hacksilber came from the southern Aegean and Balkans (Macedonia, Thrace and Illyria). Some of it was also found to come from as far away as Sardinia and Spain.
“Previous researchers believed that silver trade had come to an end following the societal collapse at the end of the Late Bronze Age, but our research shows that exchanges between especially the southern Levant and the Aegean world never came to a stop,” Gentelli said. “People around the eastern Mediterranean remained connected. It’s likely that the silver flowed to the Levant as a result of trade or plunder.”
(Excerpt) Read more at mining.com ...
Eastern hacksilber from the Achaemenid Levant, including jewellery and Greek coins, 425-420 BC.Reference image by Classical Numismatic Group, Wikimedia Commons
You will note that this ancient coinage was not backed by the full faith and credit of the govt who created it, and it still has value today
The silver has a value as a commodity. The coins are not legal tender anywhere. So, no.
FIFY
That is the point, and it was the reasoning of our founding fathers as well.
Uh, no.
The pieces with loops and holes could sell quite well at the neighborhood rap singer outfitters.
Do you think there Roman Hunt brothers in three piece togas?
Very interesting. The trade in silver as a precursor to it becoming a regional currency and well before actual coinage.
I've read that Martha Washington's (She was rich) silverware was used to make the first coins of the USA.
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