Page 184 - English Class 9

Reading II

Look at the pictures and answer the following questions.

a. What are these currencies?

b. What would happen if we didn't have money?

Curriculum Development Centre 78-CEHRD

The History of Money

The use of money is as old as the human civilisation. Money is basically
a means of exchange; and coins and notes are just items of exchange. But
money was not always in the same form as the money today, and is still
developing.

Before the invention of money, the basis Curriculum Development Centre 78-CEHRD
of early commerce was barter, a system
of direct exchange of one product for
another. Subsequently, both livestock,
particularly cattle, and plant products
such as grain, came to be used as money
in many different societies at different
periods. Cattle are probably the oldest of
all forms of money, as the domestication of
animals tended to precede the cultivation
of crops. The earliest evidence of banking is found in Mesopotamia
between 3000 and 2000 BCE when temples were used to store grain and
other valuables used in trade.

Some of the earliest currencies were objects from nature. A notable example
is cowrie shells, first used as money about 1200 BCE. Although they may
seem a pretty random choice, the shells had a number of advantages: they
were similar in size, small, and durable. While the mollusks that produce
the shells are found in the coastal waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans,
the expansion of trade meant that even some European countries accepted

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