Changes

Since the beginning of human civilization over 5,000 years ago, gold has had an inherent economic and monetary value. Numerous primary source documents from the Bronze Age Near East describe how gold bullion and dust was traded as a form of currency and in the sixth century BC the first gold coins were minted on a large scale in the kingdom of Lydia. Gold continued to be used as a currency throughout the medieval and early modern periods of world history until it was finally combined with paper currency in the eighteenth century, creating what is commonly referred to by economists and historians as the “classical gold standard.”