Currency: Did you mean...?

Spartan women had more rights and enjoyed greater autonomy than women in any other Greek city-state of the Classical Period (5th-4th centuries BCE). Women could inherit property, own land, make business transactions, and were better educated...

For the Incas finely worked and highly decorative textiles came to symbolize both wealth and status, fine cloth could be used as both a tax and currency, and the very best textiles became amongst the most prized of all possessions, even more...

The New Economic Policy (NEP) of Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), leader of Soviet Russia, was the introduction in 1921 of a limited form of capitalism in light industry and agriculture. Contrary to Marxist economic ideas, the NEP was viewed as...

The Achaemenid Empire (c. 550-330 BCE) was the first great Persian political entity in Western and Central Asia which stretched, at its peak, from Asia Minor to the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia through Egypt. It was founded by Cyrus II (the...

Money may take many forms, from the digital code of cryptocurrency to the woodpecker scalps favoured in early California. People have also used cattle, cacao beans, cowrie shells, chewing gum, grain, and giant stones as money. Early cultures...

Trade in raw materials and manufactured goods in ancient Celtic Europe was vibrant and far-reaching, particularly regarding the centre of the continent where there was a hub of well-established trade routes. As the Celts' territory expanded...

It has been said that the greatest enemy of Rome was Rome itself, and this is certainly true of the period known as the Crisis of the Third Century (also known as the Imperial Crisis, 235-284). During this time of almost 50 years, over 20...

You'll notice that many ex-British Colonies, like Australia, Canada and New Zealand don't use pounds like their former British overlords but instead use dollars. Why? What caused these nations to switch currencies and why did they prefer...

Michael Goudket, the Adjutant General of the Order of the Ancient & Honorable Huntington Militia, explains currency used in 18th Century Colonial America. To better understand daily life and material culture in Colonial America, one must...

An eight-dollar bill minted by the Continental Congress in 1775. Collection of the Baker Library, Harvard Business School.