Page 122 - Grasp English C1+ (Student Book)

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History The Lydians

According to Herodotus, the first coins to be used by a
government were created by the Lydian Empire, around
600 BCE. Herodotus was a Greek historian, born more than
a century later, who is often thought of as “the Father of
History” due to the fact that he was one of the first people
to write a chronological history of events. He gathered
accounts and hand-me-down tales to produce his
work, The Histories, and whilst at the time other historians
argued that his work was based on legends rather than
facts, much of it has since been verified by modern-day
archaeologists and historians.
The Lydians were a people who lived in the Anatolia region, chronological – in order of time
an area within modern-day Turkey. Although previous legend – a story handed down through
examples of locally-used coins or other bartering tokens history, often with no factual evidence
have been discovered by archaeologists, it was the Lydians
who first developed coins which were used throughout bartering token – an object in trade used
their Empire. Similarly, though precious metals had been before coins became widely available
used before that date in commerce, the Lydians minted to mint – to produce coins
coins which were of equal weight and value, making trade to stamp – to imprint a design on a surface
more efficient as the metals had previously needed to be
weighed. The Lydian coin, or stater, contained a mix of
approximately 55% gold and 45% silver and was stamped
with a design representative of the city: the heads and
torsos of a lion and bull facing each other.

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