Alain Bresson | Coinage: The Greek Way of Handling Money
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- čas přidán 23. 10. 2014
- Money Matters: The Development of Money through the Ancient World. A four-part series that traces the development of economic systems in the ancient world and explore how money as a financial instrument has evolved over the millennia.
Coinage: The Greek Way of Handling Money
October 1, 2014
Alain Bresson
Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor, Associate Member in the Department of History, University of Chicago
Why was it that the invention of coinage took place in Lydia and Ionia, and not in other countries or regions? And why was it that for several centuries the Greek world remained the sole region of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean world where coinage was in common use? The lecture will address the question of the birth of coinage in a comparative perspective. It will insist on the profound unity between the various forms of coinage, from the electrum coins of the seventh century BCE, to the gold, silver and bronze coinage of the later periods.
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Excellent presentation, well documented, thanks
Good presentation.
The gentleman's accent is perfectly mild, I'm amazed some people had an issue with it -I guess they've never met a Frenchman before, wait till they conk into a Glaswegian!
Thought provking and well presented. Thank you.
Excellent, well researched presentation.
I found most interesting that Gold and Silver coins issued by King Croesus of Lydia, are today called Croesids (see video at 38:39-39:35), and were adopted by the Persians who conquered his land (Cyrus conquered Sardis, Lydia by circa 540 BC, then he conquered Babylon circa 539 BC, setting free the Jews, allowing them to return to their Promised Land and rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon as prophesized by Jeremiah and Isaiah) and that the Croesids were minted by the Persians until circa 515-513 BC when King Darius replaced the silver Croesids with Silver Siglos coins showing the Persian king running with a spear and bow in each hand, with an incuse reverse. Gold with the same design (running king with spear and bow) being called Darics, after King Darius. In 332 BC Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire and took the hoards of silver and gold found in the capital of Persepolis and made all of it into Greek tetradrachmas (tetra + four) and drachmas bearing the image of Hercules on the obverse and a seated Zeus on the reverse with Alexander's name. I just bought a silver Croesid on ebay a few months ago (October of 2017) in _very fine_ condition for $485.00, showing the heads of a lion and bull confronting each other, with an incuse reverse (3.64 grams, 1/2 Stater). A cheap price to pay, if you ask me, for a lovely specimen of the world's earliest known coinage! I have been collecting coins since 1960 and am aged 74 years. The Persian silver Siglos sells for around $50 to $150 depending on condition, while a gold Daric sells for around $2,000.00.
The problem with "as prophesized by Jeremiah and Isaiah" is that the second half of Isaiah was written *after* the return from Babylon (when it's much easier to make "prophecies" come true.
wonderful!!! Thank you for your information!
That was a great look into the earliest history of coinage. Very excellent narration, and production. Thanks 🙏
So I suppose all the ppl complaining here about it being unwatchable or unintelligible are perfectly multi-lingual themselves.
sometimes its really useful to having learned english as a second language, because then you're used to understand accents...
Don't be an idiot. One does not need to be an expert in multiple languages to know that someone else is hard to understand.
13:00 It is worth noting this is very misleading. The technology for minting changed quite a lot between its invention and the introduction of milled coinage. Its apparent even in that image (which is probably not entirely an accurate depiction). The figure on the left is cutting metal with scissors to make blanks but most ancient coins were cast. The fabric of dies changed at some point from bronze to iron, probably then to harden iron faces - and lots of other small changes. Even if they seem small compared to the introduction of machines such small changes can have a large cumulative effect.
6:31 Systemization should not be discounted as a form of invention.
32:56 Something similar is seen even now with sellers of precious metals: the "markup percentage over spot" is much higher for small gold and silver products than it is for large coins, rounds and bullion.
45:17 Fees on monetary exchange still exist today between currencies.
It's a necessity of production. I have been preparing to strike some coins out of curiosity.
Without a factory capable of mass scale production with in house toolmakers and engravers its absurdly cheaper to strike 100 large pieces than it is 1000 fractional pieces
Even if you have that, it's still cheaper to strike fewer, larger pieces.
If you use the ancient and medieval methods, the gap is monstrous.
The Greek method had to manufacture the blanks, QC them, reject lots of them, then hot strike them. More pieces, more labor, more energy, more die wear.
Using the modern planchet method and non-human QC and striking makes it more economical to strike pocket change where hundreds of millions may be struck. However, for small scale manufacturers of precious metals, each fraction represents a whole new grouping of tooling for a professional product. Same issue with tooling wear as well.
Simply put, it's impossible to mint 100 tenth ounce coins for same price as 10 one ounce coins regardless of what technology is used.
Did anyone catch which die last longer? He just says this one and that one... Is it the obverse?
Yes, the obverse die is embedded inside the anvil, so it sustains less stress compared to the reverse die, which is being directly hit.
@@aleksandargrahovac6072 thank you sir
I can’t understand you!
hummmm strange presentation.
Unfortunately, an interesting subject was rendered unwatchable.
What was it that "rendered the subject unwatchable"?
Hard to watch... too much staggered words...