As we shall see further on, the Egyptian rings are made on a standard almost identical with the Homeric talent, and I have shown elsewhere that the rings from Mycenae were made on almost the same standard[63]. I shall endeavour to show in an Appendix that the Irish rings also show evidence of being made on a definite standard, whilst it has been long well known that the Scandinavian rings and armlets have likewise a standard of their own.
When occasion arose they cut off a piece of this bent wire (for it was really nothing more), and gave it by weight. Such a piece was called a scillinga, and is the direct ancestor of our own shilling[64]. It is not unlikely also that the ancient inhabitants of Portugal employed similar pieces of wire, as Strabo tells us that the Lusitanians have no money, but that they employ silver wire, from which they cut off a portion when necessary[65].
We now pass on to Africa, where we shall find most varied systems of currency. Thus on the West Coast of Africa the bar is the unit. In fact all merchandise is reckoned by the bar[66], which now at Sierra Leone means 2s. 3d. worth of any kind of commodity, although originally it meant simply an iron bar of fixed dimensions, which formed the chief article of exchange between the natives and the earliest European traders. In other parts of the same region axes serve as currency; these are too small to be really employed as an implement, but are doubtless the survival of a period not long past when real axes served as money. Thus we get a complete analogy to the hoe money of the Chinese and the fish-hook currency of Ceylon and the Maldive Islands. In Calabar they formerly employed bunches of quadrangular copper-wire as currency. Each wire was about 12 inches long, and they were of course meant to be made into necklets and armlets[67].
Fig. 11. Axe Money (West Africa).
In other parts of the West Coast, as in the Bonny River territory, iron rings very closely resembling in shape the bronze fibulae found in Ireland, which probably were armlets, are employed as money. Those which I have seen seem too small to be used as bracelets, and are now probably a true money, retaining the old conventional shape (see [Fig. 12])[68].
Fig. 12. Old Calabar copper-wire formerly used as money.
In the region of the Upper Congo brass rods are employed as currency for articles of small value. This wire, made at Birmingham, about the thickness of ordinary stair-rod, is sent out in coils of 60 lbs., and is then cut into pieces of a foot long[69]. Short brass rods and armlets are also largely exported from Birmingham for the African trade.
