Coins off ered several advantages over barter. Th ey were
easier to move than grain and livestock. Th e state guaranteed
the quality and amount of metals in coins. Coinage allowed
the state to take more control of commercial transactions,
which served to increase the power of nations. Despite these
advantages, coins were still not perfect. Th ey were not stan-
dardized from state to state. Most early series of coins did not
include small denominations, so they were useless for small
transactions. Historians believe that the fi rst coins were used
mainly for large payments by states to armies or other states.
Early coin making was a laborious process. Mints fi rst
made blanks—blank coins of the correct size and weight but
with no marks on them—by pouring molten metal into a clay
mold. Most of the earliest coins were made of electrum, but
the gold component of the alloy soon became too expensive,
and most cities and states switched to silver coins. Minters
took great care to ensure that their molds were the right size
and that the molten metal contained the correct combination
of ores. Th e mint would then make the blanks into actual
coins by imprinting it with dies made of iron or bronze; they
would place the blank in the die and strike it with a hammer.
Th e die would leave an image on the coin, such an eagle or a
king’s head. Th e minters would then engrave the back side
by hand. Sometimes mints remade old coins with new dies,
stamping the old coins with new images instead of making
fresh blanks. Most ancient coins were rather rough; they were
usually not perfectly round, and the edges of the die used to
mark them could be clearly seen within their borders. During
the 200s c.e. Middle Eastern minting techniques improved,
and coins became much thinner and fl atter.
During Roman times Roman coins were legal tender in
much of the Mediterranean world. By the fi rst century b.c.e.
Roman coins were accepted throughout Greece, western Tur-
key, and the Levant and in many places farther east as well.
During the Roman Republic (509-27 b.c.e.) the main Roman
coins were called the sestertius and the denarius. During the
Roman Empire, lasting until 476 c.e., the common coins were
the aureus and the denarius. Romans also minted coins cus-
tomized to individual localities. For example, in Asia Minor
Romans minted coins called cistopori. In Syria they made lo-
cal coins called tetradrachms. Individual provinces contin-
ued to mint their own coins as well; most of these coins were
made of bronze, and people knew how much they were worth
in relation to Roman coins.ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
BY KIRK H. BEETZ
Barter never entirely disappeared in ancient Asia and Ocea-
nia because many people lived outside the countries that
developed cash economies. Furthermore, in hard economic
times, people oft en ventured outside cash economies to trade
on their own through barter. Th e desire to attach an objective
value to goods developed in Asia sometime before 1500 b.c.e.
By that time the Vedic culture that was moving into north-Silver coins of various cultures found at Persepolis, Persia (modern-
day Iran) (Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago)
756 money and coinage: Asia and the Pacific