When people first started getting paid for work they did for others, they may have been paid in salt or even with shells.
Actual money did not appear until around 600 B.
C.
in Lydia.
Lydia was a kingdom associated with ancient Greece.
Their first coins had the head of a lion.
They were made of a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver called electrum.
They were a uniform weight and were poured into a mold and then struck between two engraved plates.
As trade routes began to take shape, other nations developed their own type of money.
Gold and silver gradually replaced electrum as the metal of choice in the history of money.
The value of these metals reflected the value of the gold or silver that it took to make them.
Some modern coins have no precious metal value, but are simply what each government has decided they are worth.
Some metals were made in honor of kings or cities.
The history of coins shows us that this type of metal had a picture on the front side and a simple punch mark on the reverse side.
Alexander the Great was in great part credited with spreading the popularity of money through the lands that he conquered.
His generals and those who followed were responsible for introducing realistic likenesses as a regular feature of their money.
There are some rulers who's only known portraits exist on the type of metal they choose.
The Romans used coins to depict their rulers from childhood through their current maturity.
The history of money in the Roman world shows unsurpassed quality in the portraiture.
Since newspapers and daily reports throughout the land was not heard of at this time, these metal objects served to let the common people know what was going on in their country.
They frequently employed master artists to design the money.
History was also displayed on their money through depictions of the Coliseum and the Circus Maximus.
The first task generally undertaken upon a change in rulers was to have new coins struck which legitimatized his claim to the throne.
They paid their supporting armies with these new type of money.
In the Medieval age, the Christian church became a political force in the Byzantine Empire.
In the Byzantine art, pictures of God stood at the center of the universe rather than man who had previously occupied that space.
As Christian religions began to spread, the history of money began to change.
There have been many pieces of copper and silver with a representation of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and other saints.
Many silver coins were struck when the two Jewish revolts against Rome occurred.
Many kings, rulers, and cities mentioned in the Bible have been on money.
The 30 pieces of silver paid to Judas were silver tetra drachma from Tyre.
The cities that St.
Paul visited during his travels have also been struck on pieces of copper and silver.
The Chinese made their money by pouring the metal into molds.
They were not struck between to dies as they are now.
In the history of coins, the Chinese money have beautiful calligraphy and a patina of age that make them desirable as very collectible.
Each dynasty in the Chinese history had its own money.
The more rich the rulers in the dynasty, the more opulent the designs on their money were.
Not all the Chinese coins were round.
Many were formed in what was called a spade pattern.
They were fashioned after weeding and gardening tools.
These spades were typically made of mostly copper.
Coins made it much easier for all concerned.
It became a universal symbol of monetary usage.
Different forms of money have been uncovered in many archaeological digs.
A lot of coins were far from their country of origin further supporting the fact that the metal objects went along on a lot of journeys.