The Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards

Who invented money? This book, written in the late 19th century, traces the answer further back than you might expect. Ridgeway investigates the origins of metallic currency and the weight standards that made it possible, traveling through ancient Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome to understand how human beings first agreed that a piece of metal could represent value. This is archaeology as detective work, with scales and silver as the clues. The book demonstrates that standardized weight systems preceded coinage itself, suggesting that civilization built its economic foundations on measurement before it built them on money. Ridgeway brings a comparative method to ancient systems, showing how different cultures arrived at similar solutions to the problem of trusted exchange. Written when archaeology was still a young discipline, this work retains its power to surprise and illuminate. For anyone curious about where money comes from, or how ancient traders solved problems we still recognize today, it offers a journey back to the beginning of economic life.