Gold and electrum rings from the Nahal Qanah Cave (Israël) late fifth millennium BC. Money?pic.twitter.com/ch9YbUkW8V
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I don't think this is money yet. Came a bit later (third millennium bc, in my books). These are collectibles
@NickSzabo4
There isn't a sharp distinction to be made between collectibles and money. Collectibles were a store of value and medium of wealth transfer -- the main distinctions one might make are somewhat arbitrary cutoffs of velocity and granularity.
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The thing with collectibles is that they were first made for reasons such as esthetics and religion. Gold ie was picked up from river beds coz humans saw the sun in it: eternal life. Later collectibles became exchanged and obtained an “economic” value.
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What do you think
@judyzara ? -
Either way I think there’ll be a ledger somewhere.
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Most "ring money" (first bronze later silver) was more in the form of coils, of which segments could be easily separated.
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Yes, the above rings would likely have been used by tally, like shell beads. Whether or not they come in standard weights would be a good clue.
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Gold in this period (before coinage 7th century BC) often came in "similar" forms but, like ingots today, were weighed for actual content. They were not "standardized" to the extent that they could trade without weighing.
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Agreed. Same with silver. Even after coinage was invented they sticked with “weighing on payment” for a few centuries in Mesopotamia.
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Oops. Let me add that weighing was perhaps not customary before balances were invented! So when was that? I know of evidence in the 4th millennium, but not from before.pic.twitter.com/8GeJsl45O3
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Since these are electrum & gold they may have been used in higher-value wealth transfers than those of later Mesopotamian and Holy Land silver.https://twitter.com/NickSzabo4/status/983714112667508736 …
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Just going from the photo these rings look like ugly jewelry of standard sizes, making possible a higher frequency of use use as a medium of value transfer than the unique / nonfungible collectibles generally featured in museums.
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