Rethinking Early Money and the State

In ancient studies, money, and especially coinage, has been predominantly associated with the state, in theoretical opposition to the market. In this paper, we argue that a strong focus on the state as a context for the appearance of early money may obscure our understanding of the range of different ways, in which money as an innovation, could be anchored and socially embedded. This is illustrated by two case studies. In the Iron Age eastern Mediterranean, it was the collapse of state control and its effects on trade networks at the end of the LBA, rather than a process of state formation, that led to a proliferation of the use of (precious) metal as a means of exchange. In early Roman Italy, the adoption of coinage was not so much a result of internal developments in the Roman state, but rather a way to facilitate interaction with others on the Italian peninsula.