Vocabulary
Bartering
When it came to purchasing goods, people had to barter. Bartering meant trading things for other things. Imagine really wanting a new phone, so you give your friend you tablet instead. It all depended on the value of the objects being traded.
Trade, Bartering, and Currency
Ancient EgyptAncient Egypt had a good trading system for its time. What people traded depended on what the person had at the time. If you wanted to trade your livestock for land, you could. However, bartering started getting replaced because as trading grew, disagreements on price grew. To solve this, they introduced a Deben, this was a form of measuring the cost of goods and objects. While people still needed to trade objects for objects, the Deben became a way to settle the disagreeances of cost.
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Ancient China
Ancient China also used the bartering system, however, a unique feature of their society was the use of shell currency. The naming of Shell Currency comes from the fact they used shells as their money, however, due to the lack of shells in North-East China, other types of Shell currency started to be made: stone, bone, jade, copper, gold.
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Indus River Valley
The Indus River Valley is known for bartering and trade. One of the popular trading goods was cotton. However, it is believed that later on in their civilization, they shifted to using soapstone seals as a form of currency.
Due to a lack of strong evidence, the current belief is their primary method of trade was the bartering system |
Ancient Mesopotamia
Ancient Mesopotamia did of course use bartering, however, more evidence is known for this ancient civilization. The image on the left is a clay token, which was used as a form of currency dating as far back to 3,300 BC(E). As time went on, this currency was replaced with a shekel of silver (on the right) approximately 2,500 BC(E).
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Thought Exercise - Assignment
Create your own currency.
- What is the name of your currency?
- What is your currency made of?
- What is special about your currency?
- How much is a cell phone?
- How much is a loaf of bread?
- Is your pricing logical?
- When would your currency exist? (past, present, future?)
Discussion
- Why do you think currency and money was so important?
- How would our society today look if we only used the bartering system?