After years of speculation, researchers have finally traced the origins of Europe's revolutionary adoption of silver coins in the mid-7th century, uncovering a tale of economic evolution and...
In the 1600s, before Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, Europe experienced a unique phenomenon known as tulip mania . Amsterdam's wealthy merchants assigned astonishing value to exotic tulips, reaching up...
Inflation is a common economic phenomenon that can have a significant impact on the stability of a country's economy and social structures. This was certainly true for the Roman Empire, which...
Although China’s pre-revolution hyperinflation during the 1940s is the one that one often hears about, there is a less-documented hyperinflation that occurred in ancient China. The first civilization...
There is a curiosity that belongs to ancient Roman history which historians are yet to solve; there exists a collection of Roman brass coins or tokens that depict sexual acts on one side and a...
The days of ‘cash as king’ are fading. Today, credit, debit, and digital currency have begun to slowly replace cash as the primary forms of payment, but it was not always so. For centuries, paper...
The world’s most expensive spice by weight, saffron, has been valued and coveted by many ancient civilizations for a multitude of purposes, and debates over its origins still continue. Worth its...
In Bronze Age Britain (2,500 to 800 BC), gold was frequently mined and used to manufacture a range of decorative and ceremonial objects. But in contrast to other areas, it seems that people of that...
Olbia (also spelled Olvia) began as an ancient Greek colony on the northern coast of the Black Sea, in the southern part of modern-day Ukraine. Olbia was famous as an emporium, and the importance of...
According to the statistics provided by the World Economic Forum, nowadays China can boast its position as the world’s second largest spender on scientific research and development, yielding only to...
While searching for artifacts in a secluded spot in the West London borough of Hillingdon in August 2020, a team of archaeologists assigned to the HS2 high-speed rail project hit the jackpot, both...
A team of French, Australian, and Israeli scientists has collected evidence proving there was an active and thriving silver trade network in the eastern Mediterranean region in the Late Bronze Age...
Archaeologists from Germany and Italy have found convincing proof that people in Late Bronze Age Europe used metal scraps or fragments as a form of money . As excavations throughout Central Europe...
Long-term analysis of a submerged salt plant in Belize has revealed extensive and surprising details about the salt making practices of the great Maya civilization during its Classic Period, which...
Gold is arguably the human race’s most valued commodity and a lot could be written about the history of this metal. The luster, beauty, resistance to tarnishing, malleability, and overall brilliance...
A Californian researcher who studied tens of thousands of shells decorated by indigenous Chumash hunter-gatherers, has pushed back the origins of “cash” in the U.S. by over one thousand years. Dr...
A “very special and unique collection” of ancient Roman coins have been unearthed at an equally special 5,000-year-old archaeological site in Turkey. More than 650 priceless coins were found at...
A recent post from a Hungarian museum curator on Facebook tells of the discovery of “rare treasures of magnitude,” relating to the Turkish devastation following the Battle of Mohács. The news...
Ongoing excavations at a rural spot near the village of Újlengyel in central Hungary recently struck gold, both figuratively and literally. Archaeologists armed with powerful metal detectors found a...
When people think of the richest people in history , more often than not they think of industrialists from the modern era, such as the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, or the Carnegies. Perhaps some...
An English metal detectorist hunting for treasure in Hampshire recently unearthed something rare and startling. While scouring a field near the bucolic village of Buriton, where medieval artifacts...
Iron Age silver forgeries have been identified by a team of Israeli researchers. This might illustrate the economic hardships of the Tribes of Israel and their decision to make fake silver...
In the ancient world salt was so valuable that Roman soldiers were sometimes paid with salt instead of money . A monthly salt allowance was a salarium , and this Latin word seeds both the French word...
Small objects from the distant past can tell us so much about ancient societies and daily life in those cultures. A two-shekel weight from the Biblical period recently found in Jerusalem is one of...
