Nicolet-Pierre has studied the social significance of gold in the Homeric
poems. In the Iliad, in particular, wefind a highly nuanced understand-
ing of the gold talent:‘[Il est... ]... impossible de discerner une hiér-
archisation dans les présents qu’énumèrent les vers cités. Les treize, les
dix, les sept talents d’or font partie chaque fois d’un ensemble de cadeaux
somptueux, témoignages de reconnaissance ou de générosité envers
l’hôte, qui n’appellent pas de retour immédiat.’According to the author,
gold is associated with aristocratic values and is not strictly speaking
transferable, whether in exchange for other commodities, or in the form
of a gift.^65 In the same publication, Raymond Descat followed up this
investigation into archaic forms of exchange with a perceptive study of
the concept ofmultiple forms of money (monnaie multiple). In this
scenario, a variety of commodities may be exchanged for some other
good.^66 In some Mediterranean locations at least, this type of exchange
may well have characterized certain transactions prior to (or independ-
ently of) market ones, when one commodity was exchanged for another,
namely a given weight of metal.^67 The co-existence of such exchanges, in
which commodities have a socially determined equivalence, together
with a more limited and circumscribed circulation of specific materials,
including gold, amber, and a range of manufactured weapons and
vessels, seems to underlie the value system expressed in burials at a
number of Macedonian and Thracian cemeteries. The relationship
between these two forms of valuation did change over time, and evi-
dently at different rates. Silver is comparatively rare in burials from the
second half of the sixth centurybcalong the north Aegean coastline, just
at the time when silver coinages were becoming established in the same
geographical area.^68 Gold, on the other hand, continued to be used in
high status burials over the next centuries, although the forms of the
artefacts changed. Stamped foil sheets, which regularly appear in excep-
tional archaic burials, were increasingly limited to textile accessories.
An upper classRank was expressed in our northern societies through social groups that
shared a distinctive lifestyle and training. A great deal of what we know
about these groups is gained from funerary practices, which have an(^65) Nicolet-Pierre 2006, 6 (citation above); 17.
(^66) Descat 2006, 25.
(^67) Descat 2006, 24–36.
(^68) Panagopoulou 2007 for the increasing use of silver as a commodity.
Societies and economies 111