ABSTRACT
The role of money (and in many ancient economies this is equated with silver) has fascinated people throughout the ages. There has been a lively debate on the role of (coined and uncoined) silver as money in antiquity (Powell 1996; Von Reden 1995, 2007; Le Rider 2001; Jursa 2010: 469–753). We shall not enter into this debate, but it is our contention (following Jursa (2010)) that silver was used as money (means of payment, means of account) already in the ancient Near East and that silver remained the main form of money until the nineteenth century AD.
