“You give me letters instead of money?” Commercial transactions in the Near East and the Western Mediterranean ca. 1100-600 BCE: social innovation and institutional inhibition of Phoenician commerce

Abstract

Dois dos problemas mais importantes e fundamentais na pesquisa proto-histórica e antropológica são relacionados à popularização da alfabetização e às origens do dinheiro. As razões por trás da propagação repentina e abrangente do alfabeto fenício no século VII1,VII a.C. permanecem sem solução, apesar dos debates contínuos. Ao mesmo tempo, permanece largamente ignorado na pesquisa acadêmica o paradoxo de que os fenícios, comerciantes da antiguidade por excelência, aparentemente náo usaram nenhuma forma de moeda física, apesar de possuírem redes comerciais no Mediterrâneo. No entanto, pesquisas recentes suportam o alto grau de monetização das redes comerciais fenícias, bem como o fato de que formas de "proto-moeda" circulavam no Levante pelo menos a partir do século VI11 a.C. Este artigo pretende analisar esses dois problemas de uma perspectiva totalmente nova, explorando os vínculos entre eles e testando se uma causalidade pode ser estabelecida entre a repentina divulgação da alfabetização e a ausência de moeda física na economia fenícia, com foco no Ocidente. E sugerido que o aumento da monetização foi possível através dos padrões de intercâmbio comercial estabelecidos no Próximo Oriente desde o terceiro milênio a.C., que permitiram transações usando letras de crédito (notas promissórias), com pagamentos eventuais efetuados em vários meios através de um índice estabelecido de valor (por exemplo, relativo à prata).

The poster boys of antiquity’s “capitalism” shunning money? The spread of the alphabet in the Mediterranean as a function of a credit-based, maritime trade

“…The premise of money-less commercial transactions is also supported by the 6th-3rd c. BCE Iberian monetary practices in areas colonised or affected by the Phoenicians, in the Punic and Roman periods. Regions colonised by the Phoenicians adopted coinage very late compared to those colonised by the Greeks (Pappa 2017). The adoption of coinage in these Phoenician-influenced regions in Iberia was linked to the arrival of Carthaginian influence or direct control in the region, intensified by the Second Punic war 28 .…”

“…The adoption of coinage in these Phoenician-influenced regions in Iberia was linked to the arrival of Carthaginian influence or direct control in the region, intensified by the Second Punic war 28 . This would be explained if commercial exchanges in the Phoenician nucleii of south-central Iberian had functioned according to a credit-based economy, where monetary values depended on prices established in metal weight, independently of whether the payment was in silver or other means (Pappa 2017). It should be noted that as late as the Roman period, in the northern frontier zones of the Roman empire (limes), the commodities were likely reckoned in monetary terms, but were exchanged for other commodities or services, without actual money (Katsari 2010: 243).…”

“…Despite such advancements, only very recently has the parameter of the sweeping spread of literacy in the previously illiterate, early 1 st millennium BCE Mediterranean societies -more than a millennium after its invention -been highlighted as a parameter that needs to be looked at in order to explain the spread of the West Semitic abjad, i.e. the Phoeinician alphabet, in the Mediterranean (Pappa 2017). The second strand of information, largely overlooked 3 , that needs to be taken into account is that the Greek alphabet was only one of the early scripts that adapted the so-called Phoenician alphabet early in the 1st millennium BCE.…”