DO YOU HAVE MONEY?

"Money can rejuvenate an old man; lack of money can age a young one." Many may recall this statement by Masadi Ibad - one of Uzeyir Hajibayov's famous characters. In Hajibayov's comic opera "Arsin Mal Alan", the first question put by maidservant Telli to servant Vali when they meet is: "Do you have money?"

Mephistopheles, a character in the great French composer Charles Gounod's opera 'Faust', says of money: "People are dying for the metal". In symbolic terms, this theme - of "metal" - arouses endless interest, fear and illusions. People always talk of money with special passion. In the Georgian film "Hanuma" a greedy Armenian merchant, having dropped a penny on the floor, crawls around on his knees to find it and, having found it, happily exclaims that "lacking one penny, even a million is not a million".

In ancient times, people put money in the tombs of the rich together with other objects - it could come in handy in the hereafter. However, many thousands of years ago people lived in ignorance of money, because they sold and bought nothing, getting everything they needed from nature. People who lived in primitive communal systems had common property and food, like everything else that was acquired by collective work. Life made people realize that one man couldn't win a war and that their power lay in unity. At first, members of a tribe engaged in all tasks together - they hunted, fished and gathered edible fruits and roots together. Later, they realized that if labour was divided and everyone did what they could do best, things would go faster and they would save time and increase productivity. Thus, people began to exchange the products of their labour. The division of labour contributed to the development of primitive exchange. Tribal representatives exchanged goods in the following way - they brought their products to a predetermined place, laid them on the ground and left. Members of a neighbouring tribe came, left their goods, took away what they needed in exchange and left. Such exchange, which is now called "barter", caused some inconvenience. And to facilitate such transactions, a value equivalent was found. Thus, they identified a product which always sold well, as it was in high demand. This laid the foundation for primitive money. The majority of ancient peoples used livestock as money, which is why for many peoples the word "money" meant precisely these animals. For example, the word "tovar" in Russian is derived from the Turkic word "davar" - small livestock.

When describing some kinds of military weapons, the ancient Greek poet Homer rated them in bulls, because at that time the most common means of payment was in cattle - cows, bulls, sheep and goats. We all know the meaning of the words "capital" and "capitalism". However, not everyone knows that the word "capital" comes from the Latin word "caput", i.e. "head" - cattle were previously counted by the head.

In the pre-Christian period, "cow money" was in circulation in the territory of present-day Germany, while northern peoples used deer as money. Other small nations used sugar, ivory, furs, cocoa, opium etc.

Some countries used beans, tobacco leaves and pressed tea as money. In tropical Africa, New Guinea and Old Russia, slaves were commonly used as a unit of price and for payment. In some countries money was replaced by certain species of fish, dog teeth, copper axes, fragments of rock, which could be 2m in diameter, and even pig teeth strung on a cord. Sometimes the length of such filaments reached 12m.

In ancient Hellas, iron rods in the form of ingots were used during trading operations. Sometimes they were made in the form of a circle or semicircle. Slavic money was in the form of small axes, while the Chinese used miniature bronze adzes (axes), knives or bells. On the islands of Melanesia and elsewhere in Oceania, money took the form of mats which were rolled into coils and tied with strings. Merchants who came from Europe put their own stamps on the rolls they had purchased. In Angola, for example, the Portuguese accepted such rolls as legitimate money and took them in payment for taxes.

The Indians of Northwest America used "coverlet money". In Sudan and Guinea, cotton fabric was used as a means of payment, and in Tibet people used a silk fabric called "hadak" as money.

 In Africa, bars of salt were used as money. On the Nicobar Islands money in the shape of walnut beams was popular, in Tibet - walnuts, in the Caroline Islands in the Micronesian archipelago - banana peel and even cheese. 

Often, drugs or irritants were used as money. In Siberia, Indonesia and Africa, tobacco leaves were used as money: one leaf could buy two bananas. Seven tobacco leaves were equal to seven French francs.

In the Chinese island of Taiwan, there was an opium currency. Spirits were also used as money: in the rainy season, one egg could be bought for half a glass of rum, and in the dry season, one egg cost a whole glass. Three goats were sold for a bottle of rum and a piece of cloth.

Another valuable means of exchange was pig money, which was in circulation mainly in the Melanesian island of New Ireland. It consisted of coral circles, canine teeth and glass beads which could number up to twenty thousand. One or two pig tails were always attached to the end of the string to which the money was attached. This money was used most often to buy a woman or a pig. When buying a woman two bundles of canine teeth were added.

In Cameroon, local people valued highly the pearls they called abug as money. For a couple of handfuls of such pearls, you could even buy a person.

Deformed animal teeth were also commonly used as money. To create these forms, they resorted to special tricks during the development of the teeth. For example, boar tusks of annular shape were much in demand. The upper incisors were extracted from newborn boar cubs. The lower teeth would then start to grow downwards and took the shape of a ring. Papuans wore them on their wrists as bracelets.

In New Guinea and the northern part of the Melanesian islands dog money was widespread. For money they used just four fangs strung on a thread. In New Guinea, about a hundred of these teeth could buy a woman or a young man. In this area, the teeth of the kangaroo and opossum were also in circulation and, on the volcanic island of Bougainville in the Pacific Ocean, the teeth of bats and dolphins were in use. Whale teeth were used as small change.

In Oceania, feathers of various shape were considered a special form of money. Strung on a strip of material, up to 2,000 feathers constituted great wealth, because thousands of birds were slaughtered in the process. Particularly valuable were the soft feathers that framed the eyes of chickens. Such money could buy a young girl or two pigs. To protect feather money against insects, the bundles were wrapped in tree bark and hung above the fireplace. They were passed from father to son, and were considered to have lost their value only once the red feathers faded.

 Some tribes used skulls as money. For example, in Assam (India) cow skulls were used, and in Kalimantan (Indonesia) - human skulls.

One early variety of money was a kind of coral known as kauri. This currency appeared in China 2,000 years BC. The basic unit of currency was a string of 5 to 10 kauris. The seven thousand kauris discovered in the tomb of Queen Fu Hao of the Shang state, which existed in the territory of modern China, testify that she had been very rich. The kauri retained its value even after the appearance of metallic money. The latter even being produced in kauri form.

In the Pacific Ocean there is an island called Yap. It is the capital of the Federated States of Micronesia. Although the official currency of the island is the US dollar, the local residents dislike the civil monetary transactions conducted by the two commercial banks operating here. They still use flat stone discs with a hole in the centre. This "money" is the heaviest and the most original currency in the world, and Yap is called "the island of stone money". These stone discs (money) with a hole in the middle can reach a diameter of five metres. As the diameter increases and thickness decreases, the value of these discs grows. A large disc is equivalent to the price of a woman, a boat, or a pig.

The size of the stone money makes it impossible to use in daily operations. Thus, they stand in front of the owner's hut. If the owner does business with someone who lives far away, the buyer comes to him, carefully checks the quality of the stone money and walks away, leaving the stone in position if he is satisfied with its quality. When a local resident has to pay a tax or a fine, a government representative puts his stamp on the stone money. If the money changes hands, the old seal is washed away and a new stamp is put on the money.

 Prior to metal coins, mankind used hundreds of different objects as money. In the second millennium BC, Egypt and Mesopotamia used bronze rings as a means of barter. Their value was determined by weight. In ancient Babylon, the weight of metal was standardised, and its compliance was confirmed by an official state seal.

In Italy, prior to coinage, barter was carried out with bronze ingots, accepted after weighing. Later, everyone realized that it was better to use ingots with a certain stable weight. Metal money had several advantages compared to the previous, primitive money. First, the metal did not deteriorate and could be used for a long time. Second, it took up little space and was easy to carry. Third, the metal could be split into smaller pieces and used for small commercial operations. To prevent the forgery of gold and silver coins, the government always placed its stamp on them. Thus, each state developed its own national currency.

The works of Herodotus, Xenophanes and other ancient scholars indicate that the first metal coins were minted in Lydia - a state which existed in what is now Western Turkey - in about 650 BC. These coins were bean-shaped and were made of an alloy of gold and silver extracted from the Lydia River. One side of the coin depicted a lion - the emblem of King Gyges, while the other had an inscription confirming the weight and purity of the metal.

India and China used silver coins in the form of boards which portrayed the characters of princes, merchants or bankers.

In the 9th century BC, China minted knife-shaped coins. Later they began to make coins that could be used for cutting whale carcasses. 

Many metallic coins took their names from the scales or weights used for weighing metal. The Latin word "libra" means scales. In Rome, libra was a unit of weight. The Byzantines called it "litra", while the Italians used "lira".

Once used as a unit of weight, the word "Hryvnia" later came to mean money, and eventually became "grivennik" - 10 kopecks.

The British pound means 1 pound of silver (libra), and it is therefore denoted by the letter L. In the 16th century there were great silver mines in the Czech Republic where the raw material for minting coins was extracted. Coins made of this silver were called "thaler". It is from this word that the name of the American currency - the dollar - is derived.

As we know from historical sources, the first paper money appeared in 140-87 BC in China where, as a result of continuous wars with the nomadic Mongols, the treasury of the empire was almost emptied, and the nominal value of metallic money had fallen sharply because of its common coinage. That is why the Emperor Wu ordered the mints to issue treasury bills with a face value of 400,000 copper coins. They were square and made from the skins of white deer with a special picture. However, this unusual experiment in the science of monetary management failed due to the small number of white deer. The Chinese issued paper money for the second time in the 9th century. Since the wind could easily carry away these "bills", they were called "flying money".

In Europe, paper money was first printed in 1601 in Sweden. Now each country has its own national currency. In Azerbaijan, it is called the manat, in Germany - the mark, in Russia - the rouble, Spain - the peseta, France - the franc, and Japan - the yen, China - the yuan, in India - the rupee...

At a time of a global crisis, all these currencies are experiencing hardship. Some have lost value, while others can barely keep afloat. The US dollar continues to lose ground as an international currency and attempts by the major countries to find an alternative to the dollar, or to adopt a multi-currency system, are still only attempts.