This is an absorbing and densely argued book that presents an intricate narration about the origins of money. As the title indicates, the book relates the history of money in the Iron Age Mediterranean world with a particular emphasis on the Levant and the Aegean.
The volume focuses on the precious metal hoards, predominantly containing silver, known from the southern Levant and the Ancient Near East since the beginning of the twentieth century. A review of these hoards has been presented by two distinct papers, one by R. Kletter and the other by C.M. Thompson, which appeared simultaneously in 2003. But it is M.S. Balmuth's research and publications (Ph.D. dissertation 1964; 1967 and especially 2001) that H.'s book builds on.
The first two chapters outline the theoretical premises for the discussion to follow. H. brings together ideas from anthropologists and sociologists to demonstrate that the materiality of money was never bound to particular requirements. Instead, a series of carefully employed parallels, the tugudu cloth for the Tiv in Central Nigeria, the vaygua-objects or tokens of wealth of the Tobriand in New Guinea and the two distinct spheres of silver economy of the Viking Age (one for the display of status and the other for the purpose of trade) show that in human history there have been primitive predecessors of modern money, which qualified as money although they stand before the period of fully-fledged coinage. What constitutes money is the importance and the value attached to it in the process of exchange by the participating subjects (G. Simmel, Philosophie des Geldes [1900]; A. Appadurai, The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective [1986], pp. 3–4; D. Graeber, Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: the False Coin of Our Own Dreams [2001], pp. 1–47), and ultimately ‘money's significance results from the cultural matrix in which it is incorporated’ (J. Parry and M. Bloch, Money and the Morality of Exchange [1989], p. 1). The symbolism through which money is represented is culturally diverse, and different cultures have their own distinct money, with the shell (ndap) money of Rossel Island (Yela) serving as an eloquent example (J. Liep, in: J.W. Leach and E.R. Leach [edd.], The Kula [1983], pp. 503–25). The above brings an inherent discrepancy to the foreground: money is a symbol because it functions as a token signifying obligation in the frame of a transaction. And this symbolism is evidenced by the seal of the issuing authority. At the same time money is a commodity that is invested with value, it is hoarded and exchanged in the market (K. Hart, ‘Heads or Tails?’ Man 21 [1986], 637–56). Both these characteristics are found in the precious metal hoards of the Iron Age.
With the third chapter H. enters the main discussion. One of the central propositions of the book is that money was conceptualised long before the invention of coinage around 630 bce. Hereby the book challenges long established views rooted in the writings of an authority no less than M.I. Finley: ‘Money has existed only as coin’ (M.I. Finley, The Ancient Economy [2nd ed. 1985]). To prove that the precious metal hoards of the Iron Age deserve a place in the history of money is an arduous task, which puts into question contemporary views, no less influential, as exemplified by D.M. Schaps in The Invention of Coinage and the Monetization of Ancient Greece (2004). Nevertheless, H. draws carefully on literary and material sources and succeeds in demonstrating that there existed calculative aspects and valuation systems that burst the limits of the mere exchange of silver as a commodity.
The main arguments for this can be summarised as follows: the hoards were put in safety in under-floor levels under regular circumstances. The Iron IIA–B hoards are characterised by the severed low-weight ingots, while the silver ingots of the Ein Gedi hoard (Iron IIC) were produced by cupellation. But it was the ‘involvement of state institutions in the wider economy’ (p. 155) and the related standardisation of the weights used, both happening in the ninth and eighth centuries BCE, that created the premises for the use and circulation of silver as an exchange system.
The book breaks with the finds of earlier scholarship (notably S. Gitin and A. Golani, in: M.S. Balmuth [ed.], Hacksilber to Coinage [2001], pp. 27–48), which sought to link the seventh-century silver hoards to the Neo-Assyrian expansion and to the fiscal needs as well as the economic growth under their rule. H. dismantles the supposed role of the Assyrians in the increased use of silver as money by drawing attention to a series of historical arguments. Instead, it is tentatively put forward that the silver hoards of the late seventh century should be seen against the backdrop of the reinstatement of Egyptian rule in the late seventh century. It is the Egyptian influence that should be credited with the supply of freshly minted silver from the Aegean. Therefore, Egypt had endorsed a closed monetary system that privileged silver centuries before the reign of Ptolemy I Soter.
The book offers new insights: for instance, for the Ein Gedi hoard (Iron IIC) the ingots were won through cupellation, the process by which silver is extracted from argentiferous lead, which has not been previously recorded in scholarship. An original methodology is laid out for the study of the material properties of the hoards. The first parameter is the context. By carefully assessing available excavation data and literary sources, a general trend is recognisable with the Iron Age precious metal hoards being deposited under floor levels and under regular circumstances and not as a response to crisis and an impending danger.
Secondly, as should be expected in a study of ancient hoards, the focus lies on metrology and in this case on the weight of the individual objects and the weight distribution within the assemblages. The logarithmic scales and the histograms presented for fourteen hoards of the Iron Age Levant and Eretria exhibit specific trends that are time-related. The objects of the late LBA-Iron I transition hoards are significantly heavier, and their weight is randomly distributed. The hoards of the Iron I–IIB (incl. Eretria hoard), called for convenience the ‘Megiddo A group’, contain a high percentage of low-weight fragments up to one gram (gradual distribution of weights) and point to a high level of precision applied in weighing according to the needs of small-scale transactions. Therefore, they represented small denominations, and they could suggest intensive circulation. According to H., this latter feature has been possible to detect in the Iron I–IIB hoards.
Thirdly, the conclusions drawn from the metrological study are further corroborated by the typology. Twenty hoards were studied in terms of the types of the objects they contained. While ornamental objects (jewellery) build up the majority of the content of the LBA and Iron I hoards, Iron IIA and B hoards contain predominantly ingots, mostly in a fragmented state. With the latter hoards emphasis is placed on silver as a raw material and as a form of material wealth. If these two important material aspects of the hoards – the metrology and the typology – are combined together, a clear pattern emerges with heavier ornamental objects in the LBA Iron I hoards and severed low-weight ingots in the Iron IIA and B hoards.
Beyond these material aspects, the book succeeds in placing the precious metal of the Iron Age in its social context by the analysis of literary sources. Hereby the historical considerations presented prompt a discussion of silver not only in the (‘usual’) context of subsistence and commodity or in the context of gift exchange but also in that of blood compensation (wergeld) payments. Diverse literary sources (incl. the biblical record) provide eloquent evidence for the use of weighed silver as money.
Overall, the book is distinguished by its innovative approach to a topic little known in research and by the critical assessment of previous scholarship on Iron Age hoards. Although H. on more than one occasion declares that there is no linear development that leads to the invention of money, the book provides evidence for the gradual unfolding of dynamics that culminated in the introduction of regular coinage.
