The invention of coinage was a conceptual revolution, not a technological one. Only with the invention of Greek coinage does the concept "money" clearly materialize in history. Coinage appeared at a moment when it fulfilled an essential need in Greek society and brought with it rationalization and social leveling in some respects, while simultaneously producing new illusions, paradoxes, and new elites.

In a book that will encourage scholarly discussion for some time, David Schaps addresses a range of important coinage topics: money, exchange, and economic organization in the Near East and in Greece before the introduction of coinage; the invention of coinage and the reasons for its adoption; the monetization of the marketplace, politics, warfare, labor and agriculture; and the developing use of money to make more money.

David M. Schaps is Associate Professor of Classical Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.

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Read: More about the Arie Kindler prize and the Israel Numismatic Society, Tel-Aviv Branch at www.numis.co.il