Historians often argue about what single civilizing occurrence had the most impact upon the history that succeeded it. The invention of the plow in ancient Egypt comes to mind. Or, it could be argued that the printing press was the largest historical game-changer. In terms of industry, the Sumerian ziggurat must be on the list, or for societal order, Hammurabi’s Code, which first systematized the law in ancient Babylon. In the modern era, the invention of the home computer must be in the conversation, as well as the smart phone, perhaps.

However, there is one historical event, which to an economic historian can be argued as the most impactful on all of human kind. Everything else pales in comparison to the change brought about in the social, legal, cultural, military, labour, gender, and any other compartment of the historical landscape by one single innovation: the invention of money. Money is the greatest civilizing factor in history, and its existence remains the cornerstone of all power throughout history. Without money, nothing is possible, and for those who have most of it, anything is possible.

Before currency, the barter system was the means for purchasing goods and services. We would trade things like wheat and wood, goats and oxen, for other things like pottery and jewellery, oats and daughters. But the problem with many of the things we would trade like wheat, oats, oxen, and even daughters is the fact that they all die. Goods and services were greatly limited by the fact that they did not last long. The wealth of an individual could not be measured by his ownership of goods or his ability to produce. Even property was subject to the weather, the elements, and population adjustments.

Then, around 1100 BCE, in the era of the Palestinian civilization, a society of people in modern-day central and western Turkey, changed history forever. The ancient Lydians perfected the metallurgy of gold, silver, copper and bronze and became the first to mint coins from these metals and to create the first uniform accounting and record keeping system for the purposes of disseminating currency.