Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: this is the artifact, a short form series from Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on particular objects, ideas,
Speaker 1: and moments in time. When we think about modern physical money,
Speaker 1: we're generally thinking about something that has very little material
Speaker 1: use in and of itself. It's not that a common
Speaker 1: copper nickel clad copper quarter is actually worth twenty five cents,
Speaker 1: but rather it's accepted as a medium of exchange for
Speaker 1: that amount and issued by the governing authority. The common
Speaker 1: us quarter was once made of silver, but the value
Speaker 1: of the metal now exceeds the value represented by the coin,
Speaker 1: as pointed out by Brian Fagan and Eleanor Robson in
Speaker 1: the Seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient World. The first
Speaker 1: coins emerged in the later part of the seventh century
Speaker 1: b c. E. In the Kingdom of Lydia, now located
Speaker 1: in western Turkey. These evolved from the use of silver
Speaker 1: ingots for trade throughout Mesopotamia and Egypt, certainly examples of
Speaker 1: the sort of money that humans used at least as
Speaker 1: far back as the third millennium b c. E. But
Speaker 1: the coins of Lydia differed in that they were marked
Speaker 1: with the emblem of the issuing body, ensuring consistent quality
Speaker 1: and weight. In other words, transactions could be carried out
Speaker 1: without the use of scales. We can summarize a lot
Speaker 1: of monetary history in terms of this flow from bartered
Speaker 1: goods to money to coinage, and we can look at
Speaker 1: early forms of currency as symbols or receipts representing goods
Speaker 1: stored elsewhere, such as grain. But there are examples that
Speaker 1: seem to blur the lines between these distinctions. For example,
Speaker 1: the Mayans and Aztecs used cocao beans and trade both
Speaker 1: in bagged form and as a sort of change in
Speaker 1: the form of loose, fermented and dried coco beans. These are,
Speaker 1: after all, the raw ingredients responsible for chocolate, a prestigious
Speaker 1: food in these cultures, plus by virtue of their botanical nature,
Speaker 1: they already boast a highly consistent quality and weight. But
Speaker 1: cocow beans were not the only form of edible money.
Speaker 1: T also took on this role, particularly in Tibet, and
Speaker 1: the reason has to do not only with the value
Speaker 1: placed on tea, but also the use of compressed tea
Speaker 1: bricks tea, particularly Chinese poor, is still widely available in
Speaker 1: compressed bricks, cakes, discs, and even novelty shapes like hearts.
Speaker 1: But as Wolfgang Birch points out in the use of
Speaker 1: tea bricks is currency among the Tibetans in the Tibet Journal,
Speaker 1: the Chinese introduced tea to Tibet sometime prior to seven
Speaker 1: a d c. And while it was at first used
Speaker 1: as more of a pure bartering commodity, it eventually took
Speaker 1: a form that we might reasonably refer to as currents,
Speaker 1: a regimented system of tea bricks based on the teas
Speaker 1: quality and pureness, and eventually imprinted with trademarks and seals.
Speaker 1: But of course this currency was one that you could
Speaker 1: also brew into a delicious cup of tea. Salt, too,
Speaker 1: can be added to this discussion, as salt bricks have
Speaker 1: been used as currency in parts of Africa as well
Speaker 1: as ancient Rome. In fact, is Shauna Freeman pointed out
Speaker 1: in how Salt Works for how stuff Works dot Com,
Speaker 1: the roots of the words soldier and salary can be
Speaker 1: traced to Latin words related to the giving or receiving
Speaker 1: of salt. There are times, therefore, when it is perfectly
Speaker 1: reasonable to put your money where your mouth is. Tune
Speaker 1: into additional editions of the Artifact each week, hosted by
Speaker 1: either Joe or myself. As always, you can email us
Speaker 1: at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.
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