Coinage
Lydia stamps lumps of electrum, and money becomes a thing you can count.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 50 years
- Known to
- ± 30 years
- Era
- Iron Age, Holocene
Around 600 BCE the kingdom of Lydia issues stamped pieces of electrum of guaranteed weight — the first true coins. Before this, silver had to be weighed and assayed for every transaction; a coin carries the issuer's guarantee, so it can simply be counted. That collapses transaction costs and makes markets, wages, taxes and mercenary armies far easier to run. Coinage appears independently in India and China at roughly the same time.