side of the coin featured an embossed crocodile, which sym-
bolized Egypt, a land she had the hereditary right to rule..
Around 270 c.e. the kingdom of Axum (in modern Ethi-
opia), which emerged about the time of the birth of Jesus, be-
gan minting its own coins. It became the only currency issued
by Africans without outside infl uence. Th e coin facilitated the
Red Sea trade and had the tendency to promote the nation’s
religion and prestige.
Human society in Africa in the ancient period adopted
several materials that could be exchanged for other articles.
Both special purpose currencies and general purpose cur-
rencies developed in prehistoric Africa. Th e cowrie shell and
gold and silver currencies were general purpose currencies.
Th ey served as a means of exchange, an acceptable tender in
making payments or settling debts, a standard of value, and a
store of wealth. Th e value of money depended on supply and
demand, measured by the goods for which it was exchanged
and by other forms of money. Highly organized societies of-
ten possessed currency that had a greater number of general
purposes than simpler societies. In other words, the more
complex a society, the more likely it was to possess some form
of general purpose currency.
Special purpose currency may be an artifact useful for
other things, such as a tool or ornament. It may also include
rare items, art, and jewelry. Such materials can be collected
for the sheer pleasure of collecting them. Th ey are better
prized the rarer and the less forgeable the articles are. Spe-
cial purpose currency is restricted to specifi c spheres of the
economy, such as hunter-gatherer communities and serves
only some of the functions of money. (Th is form of money
is also referred to as an intermediate commodity.) It is more
secure from loss or theft , harder to forge, and its value is more
accurately judged by observation and measurements.
EGYPT
BY PANAGIOTIS I. M. KOUSOULIS
Th e ancient Egyptian economy was based on three principles:
barter and market exchange, redistribution, and reciprocity
and tributes. Th e underlying connection between these three
principles that aided the evolution and wealth of the Egyptian
society was that of a centralized state authority (the pharaoh)
and the temple institutes. Daily economic transactions and
storage were based on the exchange of goods and commodi-
ties rather than on the use of money. Th at held true at least for
the Pharaonic Period (ca. 3050–712 b.c.e.). Th e import and
use of money and coinage were inaugurated toward the fi rst
millennium b.c.e. with the advent of foreign mercenaries in
the armies of the pharaoh. Even at that time, though, ancient
Egyptians did not appraise the value of coined money. Th ey
regarded them as artistic objects in gold or silver appreciated
only by metalworkers.
Th e Egyptians used four units of value to price and trade
commodities, including the deben, senyu, hen, and kher.
Th ese units coincided with quantities of certain commodi-
ties: weights of silver and copper/bronze and units of capacity
of grain and sesame oil. More specifi cally, the deben was a
measure of weight used mostly for copper but also for pre-
cious materials such as gold and silver. One deben of copper
weighed about 3.3 ounces. Silver and gold deben are not men-
tioned in ostraca (pottery shards that contain inscriptions)
but only in papyri, since the former were used and distributed
only among the low-class populace. On the contrary, papyri
generally recorded greatly valued transactions among the
high offi cials and the palace.
Th e senyu was a weight in silver equal to one-half deben
or about a quarter ounce. Its use was inaugurated during the
Nineteenth and early Twentieth Dynasties (ca. 1307–ca. 1155
b.c.e.). Th e senyu could be used to express a value in the same
column of fi gures with deben. One could fi nd in an ostracon
the value of certain objects in senyu but the total of the col-
umn in deben of copper. Th e hen was a measure of volume
equal to about a half quart. Its value could vary according to
the substance or liquid to be measured, but generally it was
regarded as equal to one deben. Finally, the kher was a mea-
sure of the volume of grain, either emmer or barley, equal to
about 20 gallons, and it was valued at two deben. Th e kher
was most commonly found as a unit of value for baskets, both
because the volume of a basket was equal to its value and be-
cause baskets were inexpensive.
Th e ratios among the four units as well as their exact val-
ues are not fi xed in the sources. For example, one document
values a basket at one-quarter senyu for a volume of one-half
kher. As mentioned earlier, one kher is equal to two deben,
which means that one senyu equals four copper of deben in
value. In another document, though, one senyu of garment
was equal to fi ve copper of deben. Weight and price, both
expressed in deben, were hardly distinguishable from each
other. In the Egyptian mind there was no diff erence at all, for
the deben was not money. Cases of infl ation and price fl uc-
tuation have been recorded. Quite oft en one deben of silver
was valued as 100 deben of copper. Th is uncertainty in the
value system was a strong indication that the Egyptians were
not looking for money profi t in their transactions; it was the
objects themselves that they tried to obtain.
Th e picture changed during the Late Period (712–332
b.c.e.) with the advent of foreign mercenaries from Greece,
Syria, Israel, Persia, and other areas in the ancient Near East
in the Egyptian army. Th e fi rst reference for the import and
use of foreign coins for payment is found in the writing of the
ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus. He mentions that
the king Achoris (r. 393–380 b.c.e.) off ered to pay Athenian
and Spartan mercenaries in coins. Later in the fourth century
b.c.e. two series of coins were introduced. Th e fi rst was based
on the Athenian gold unit and struck on the Persian standard
with Egyptian motifs. Th e second consisted of tetradrachms,
struck by the Persian king Artaxerxes III (r. 359 or 358–338
b.c.e.) shortly aft er his conquest of Egypt in 342 b.c.e.
Alexander the Great and his successors, the Ptol-
emies, introduced coins that were purely Greek in style andmoney and coinage: Egypt 753