1.
Caduceus
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The caduceus is the staff carried by Hermes Trismegistus in Greco-Egyptian mythology and Hermes in Greek mythology. The same staff was also borne by heralds in general, for example by Iris and it is a short staff entwined by two serpents, sometimes surmounted by wings. C. to 3000 B. C. As a symbolic object, it represents Hermes, and by extension trades, occupations, in later Antiquity, the caduceus provided the basis for the astrological symbol representing the planet Mercury. Thus, through its use in astrology and alchemy, it has come to denote the elemental metal of the same name and it is said the wand would wake the sleeping and send the awake to sleep. If applied to the dying, their death was gentle, if applied to the dead and this association is ancient, and consistent from the Classical period to modern times. The caduceus is also used as a symbol representing printing, again by extension of the attributes of Mercury, the term kerukeion denoted any heralds staff, not necessarily associated with Hermes in particular. In his study of the cult of Hermes, Lewis Richard Farnell assumed that the two snakes had simply developed out of ornaments of the crook used by heralds as their staff. This view has been rejected by later authors pointing to parallel iconography in the Ancient Near East and it has been argued that the staff or wand entwined by two snakes was itself representing a god in the pre-anthropomorphic era. Like the herm or priapus, it would thus be a predecessor of the anthropomorphic Hermes of the classical era, william Hayes Ward discovered that symbols similar to the classical caduceus sometimes appeared on Mesopotamian cylinder seals. He suggested the symbol originated some time between 3000 and 4000 BCE, and that it might have been the source of the Greek caduceus. From this perspective, the caduceus was originally representative of Hermes himself, in his form as the Underworld god Ningishzida. The caduceus is mentioned in passing by Walter Burkert as really the image of copulating snakes taken over from Ancient Near Eastern tradition, in Egyptian iconography, the Djed pillar is depicted as containing a snake in a frieze of the Dendera Temple complex. The caduceus also appears as a symbol of the coins of the Maurya Empire in India. Numismatic research suggest that this symbol was the symbol of the Buddhist king Ashoka, the Homeric hymn to Hermes relates how Hermes offered his lyre fashioned from a tortoise shell as compensation for the cattle he stole from his half brother Apollo. Apollo in return gave Hermes the caduceus as a gesture of friendship, the association with the serpent thus connects Hermes to Apollo, as later the serpent was associated with Asclepius, the son of Apollo. The association of Apollo with the serpent is a continuation of the older Indo-European dragon-slayer motif, one Greek myth of origin of the caduceus is part of the story of Tiresias, who found two snakes copulating and killed the female with his staff. Tiresias was immediately turned into a woman, and so remained until he was able to repeat the act with the male snake seven years later and this staff later came into the possession of the god Hermes, along with its transformative powers. Another myth suggests that Hermes saw two serpents entwined in mortal combat, separating them with his wand he brought about peace between them, and as a result the wand with two serpents came to be seen as a sign of peace
2.
Mercury (mythology)
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Mercury is a major Roman god, being one of the Dii Consentes within the ancient Roman pantheon. He is the god of financial gain, commerce, eloquence, messages/communication, travelers, boundaries, luck, trickery and thieves. He was considered the son of Maia and Jupiter in Roman mythology, in his earliest forms, he appears to have been related to the Etruscan deity Turms, both gods share characteristics with the Greek god Hermes. He is often depicted holding the caduceus in his left hand, similar to his Greek equivalent he was awarded the caduceus by Apollo who handed him a magic wand, which later turned into the caduceus. Mercury did not appear among the di indigetes of early Roman religion. Rather, he subsumed the earlier Dei Lucrii as Roman religion was syncretized with Greek religion during the time of the Roman Republic, starting around the 4th century BC. He was often accompanied by a cockerel, herald of the new day, a ram or goat, symbolizing fertility, like Hermes, he was also a god of messages, eloquence and of trade, particularly of the grain trade. Mercury was also considered a god of abundance and commercial success, particularly in Gaul and he was also, like Hermes, the Romans psychopomp, leading newly deceased souls to the afterlife. Additionally, Ovid wrote that Mercury carried Morpheus dreams from the valley of Somnus to sleeping humans, archeological evidence from Pompeii suggests that Mercury was among the most popular of Roman gods. The god of commerce was depicted on two bronze coins of the Roman Republic, the Sextans and the Semuncia. This is probably because in the Roman syncretism, Mercury was equated with the Celtic god Lugus, Romans associated Mercury with the Germanic god Wotan, by interpretatio Romana, 1st-century Roman writer Tacitus identifies him as the chief god of the Germanic peoples. The Romans also made use of small statues of Mercury. Mercurius Arvernus, a syncretism of the Celtic Arvernus with Mercury, Mercurius Cimbrianus, a syncretism of Mercury with a god of the Cimbri sometimes thought to represent Odin. Mercurius Cissonius, a combination of Mercury with the Celtic god Cissonius, Mercurius Esibraeus, a syncretism of the Iberian deity Esibraeus with the Roman deity Mercury. Esibraeus is mentioned only in an inscription found at Medelim, Portugal, and is possibly the deity as Banda Isibraiegus. Mercurius Gebrinius, a syncretism of Mercury with the Celtic or Germanic Gebrinius, known from an inscription on an altar in Bonn, Mercurius Moccus, from a Celtic god, Moccus, who was equated with Mercury, known from evidence at Langres, France. The name Moccus implies that this deity was connected to boar-hunting, Mercurius Visucius, a syncretism of the Celtic god Visucius with the Roman god Mercury, attested in an inscription from Stuttgart, Germany. Visucius was worshiped primarily in the area of the empire in Gaul
3.
Prehistory
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Prehistory means literally before history, from the Latin word for before, præ, and Greek ιστορία. Neighbouring civilisations were the first to follow, most other civilisations reached the end of prehistory during the Iron Age. The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing is known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, there are no records from human prehistory. Clear techniques for dating were not well-developed until the 19th century and this article is concerned with human prehistory as defined here above. There are separate articles for the history of the Earth. However, for the race as a whole, prehistory ends when recorded history begins with the accounts of the ancient world around the 4th millennium BC. For example, in Egypt it is accepted that prehistory ended around 3200 BC, whereas in New Guinea the end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently. The three-age system is the periodization of prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their respective predominant tool-making technologies, Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age. The notion of prehistory began to surface during the Enlightenment in the work of antiquarians who used the word primitive to describe societies that existed before written records, the first use of the word prehistory in English, however, occurred in the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1836. The main source for prehistory is archaeology, but some scholars are beginning to more use of evidence from the natural and social sciences. This view has been articulated by advocates of deep history, human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight for these questions. Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology, restricted to material processes, remains and artifacts rather than written records, prehistory is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that use, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate. Palaeolithic means Old Stone Age, and begins with the first use of stone tools, the Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age. The early part of the Palaeolithic is called the Lower Palaeolithic, evidence of control of fire by early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. The most widely accepted claim is that H. erectus or H. ergaster made fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP in a site at Bnot Yaakov Bridge, Israel. The use of fire enabled early humans to cook food, provide warmth, Early Homo sapiens originated some 200,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Palaeolithic
4.
Barter
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Barter is a system of exchange where goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money. It is distinguishable from gift economies in many ways, one of them is that the exchange is immediate. It is usually bilateral, but may be multilateral and, in most developed countries, usually only exists parallel to monetary systems to a very limited extent. Barter, as a replacement for money as the method of exchange, is used in times of monetary crisis, examples include the Owenite socialists, the Cincinnati Time store, and more recently Ithaca HOURS and the LETS system. Adam Smith, the father of economics, sought to demonstrate that markets pre-existed the state. He argued that money was not the creation of governments, markets emerged, in his view, out of the division of labour, by which individuals began to specialize in specific crafts and hence had to depend on others for subsistence goods. These goods were first exchanged by barter, specialization depended on trade, but was hindered by the double coincidence of wants which barter requires, i. e. for the exchange to occur, each participant must want what the other has. To complete this hypothetical history, craftsmen would stockpile one particular good, be it salt or metal and this is the origin of money according to Smith. Money, as a universally desired medium of exchange, allows each half of the transaction to be separated, Barter is characterized in Adam Smiths The Wealth of Nations by a disparaging vocabulary, higgling, haggling, swapping, dickering. It has also characterized as negative reciprocity, or selfish profiteering. Anthropologists have argued, in contrast, that something resembling barter does occur in stateless societies it is almost always between strangers. Barter occurred between strangers, not fellow villagers, and hence cannot be used to explain the origin of money without the state. Since most people engaged in trade knew each other, exchange was fostered through the extension of credit, everyday exchange relations in such societies are characterized by generalized reciprocity, or a non-calculative familial communism where each takes according to their needs, and gives as they have. Barter is an option to those who cannot afford to store their small supply of wealth in money, the limitations of barter are often explained in terms of its inefficiencies in facilitating exchange in comparison to money. It is said that barter is inefficient because, There needs to be a coincidence of wants For barter to occur between two parties, both parties need to have what the other wants. Difficulty in storing wealth If a society relies exclusively on perishable goods, however, some barter economies rely on durable goods like pigs or cattle for this purpose. Other anthropologists have questioned whether barter is typically between total strangers, a form of known as silent trade. Silent trade, also called silent barter, dumb barter, or depot trade, is a method by which traders who cannot speak each language can trade without talking
5.
Coin
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A coin is a small, flat, round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by a government, Coins are usually metal or alloy, or sometimes made of synthetic materials. Coins made of metal are stored in large quantities as bullion coins. Other coins are used as money in transactions, circulating alongside banknotes. Usually the highest value coin in circulation is less than the lowest-value note. In the last hundred years, the value of circulation coins has occasionally been lower than the value of the metal they contain. Exceptions to the rule of face value being higher than content value also occur for some bullion coins made of copper, silver, or gold, while the Eagle, Maple Leaf, and Sovereign coins have nominal face values, the Krugerrand does not. The first coins were developed independently in Iron Age Anatolia and Archaic Greece, India, Coins spread rapidly in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, throughout Greece and Persia, and further to the Balkans. Standardized Roman currency was used throughout the Roman Empire, important Roman gold and silver coins were continued into the Middle Ages. Fiat money first arose in medieval China, with the paper money. Early paper money was introduced in Europe in the later Middle Ages, the penny was minted as a silver coin until the 17th century. The first circulating United States coins were cents, produced in 1793, Coins were an evolution of currency systems of the Late Bronze Age, where standard-sized ingots, and tokens such as knife money, were used to store and transfer value. In the late Chinese Bronze Age, standardized cast tokens were made and these were replicas in bronze of earlier Chinese currency, cowrie shells, so they were named Bronze Shell. According to Aristotle and Pollux, the first issuer of coins was Hermodike of Kyme The earliest coins are associated with Iron Age Anatolia. Early electrum coins were not standardized in weight, and in their earliest stage may have been ritual objects, such as badges or medals, issued by priests. The first Lydian coins were made of electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of silver, most of the early Lydian coins include no writing, only an image of a symbolic animal. Anatolian Artemis was the Πὀτνια Θηρῶν, whose symbol was the stag, a small percentage of early Lydian/Greek coins have a legend
6.
Precious metal
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A precious metal is a rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical element of high economic value. Chemically, the precious metals tend to be less reactive than most elements and they are usually ductile and have a high lustre. Historically, precious metals were important as currency but are now regarded mainly as investment, Gold, silver, platinum, and palladium each have an ISO4217 currency code. The best known precious metals are the metals, gold. Although both have industrial uses, they are known for their uses in art, jewelry, fine jewelry. Other precious metals include the platinum metals, ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium. The demand for metals is driven not only by their practical use but also by their role as investments. Historically, precious metals have commanded much higher prices than common industrial metals, a metal is deemed to be precious if it is rare. The discovery of new sources of ore or improvements in mining or refining processes may cause the value of a metal to diminish. The status of a metal can also be determined by high demand or market value. Precious metals in bulk form are known as bullion and are traded on commodity markets, bullion metals may be cast into ingots or minted into coins. The defining attribute of bullion is that it is valued by its mass, the level of purity varies from issue to issue. The purest mass-produced bullion coins are in the Canadian Gold Maple Leaf series, a 100% pure bullion is nearly impossible, as the percentage of impurities diminishes, it becomes progressively more difficult to purify the metal further. Historically, coins had an amount of weight of alloy. The Krugerrand is the first modern example of measuring in pure gold, other bullion coins show neither the purity nor the fine-gold weight on the coin but are recognized and consistent in their composition. Many coins historically showed a denomination in currency, although nominally issued as legal tender, these coins face value as currency is far below that of their value as bullion. For instance, Canada mints a gold coin at a face value of $50 containing one troy ounce of gold—as of May 2011. Bullion coins minting by national governments gives them some numismatic value in addition to their bullion value, one of the largest bullion coins in the world was the 10, 000-dollar Australian Gold Nugget coin minted in Australia which consists of a full kilogram of 99. 9% pure gold
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Commerce". Encyclopædia Britannica. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 766.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "