| [00:00.30] | |
| [00:06.22] | And, whether money takes the form of silver coins, seashells, bars of gold or bank notes, |
| [00:12.68] | that's been true from ancient times right down to the present day. |
| [00:17.29] | Even lumps of clay can work better than silver coins, if people have enough confidence in them. |
| [00:22.86] | In Ancient Mesopotamia, nearly 4,000 years ago, |
| [00:26.77] | people used clay tablets like these ones to commit themselves to particular financial transactions. |
| [00:33.20] | For example, this one, found a little southwest of Baghdad, |
| [00:37.49] | specifies that a debtor will repay a lender 330 measures of grain on the harvest day. |
| [00:45.06] | But this one's even more fascinating, |
| [00:46.55] | because what it says is that a debt of four measures of barley should be repaid to the bearer of the clay tablet. |
| [00:54.51] | And it's that idea of repayment to the bearer that really fascinates me. |
| [00:59.45] |
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