Imagine carrying a purse with your valuables where just the content weighs around 18.5 kg + the weight of the clay container around it… Dude must have been really ripped.
Carrying that amount around would like entail hiring someone to carry if for you and a retinue of burly guards making sure the neighborhood doesn’t get any ideas.
The Swedes used to use big copper rings for money for a long time. Robbing a bank would be virtually impossible without a wagon train and or boat. Not sure when they started or stopped that though.
But in the olden days, the country of origin didn’t really matter for coins of precious metal. Spanish coins were used across europe, the pieces of 8 were popular, silver coinage, britain had their gold guneius.
The value was just based on the metal content, and countries didn’t have the means or will to forbid other currencies.
The copper rings were used in the bronze age and not just in Sweden, but basically everywhere in Europe.
In the olden days most countries struck coins of standard weights. So a coin is popular and then copied with different motives all over the place. The drachme, which initially was developed in Athens ended up as the first big standard coin spreading via Alexander the Great all over the place. The Sasanian Empire struck coins like those for example and that is centuries later. The Roman Solidus gold coin was very commonly used as a standard size in India as well.
Imagine carrying a purse with your valuables where just the content weighs around 18.5 kg + the weight of the clay container around it… Dude must have been really ripped.
Nobody did that. This is a treasure which was deliberately buried, it was not for carrying around.
Carrying that amount around would like entail hiring someone to carry if for you and a retinue of burly guards making sure the neighborhood doesn’t get any ideas.
The Swedes used to use big copper rings for money for a long time. Robbing a bank would be virtually impossible without a wagon train and or boat. Not sure when they started or stopped that though.
But in the olden days, the country of origin didn’t really matter for coins of precious metal. Spanish coins were used across europe, the pieces of 8 were popular, silver coinage, britain had their gold guneius.
The value was just based on the metal content, and countries didn’t have the means or will to forbid other currencies.
The copper rings were used in the bronze age and not just in Sweden, but basically everywhere in Europe.
In the olden days most countries struck coins of standard weights. So a coin is popular and then copied with different motives all over the place. The drachme, which initially was developed in Athens ended up as the first big standard coin spreading via Alexander the Great all over the place. The Sasanian Empire struck coins like those for example and that is centuries later. The Roman Solidus gold coin was very commonly used as a standard size in India as well.