Inventions & Discoveries · Communication and computing

Coinage

7th century BCE · 7th century BCE

Coinage is the minting of small metal pieces for use as money, first known in the 7th century BCE in China, where a factory at Guanzhuang in Henan made shovel-shaped bronze coins between 640 and 550 BCE, and in Anatolia, where the earliest coins are mostly associated with the kingdom of Lydia. The early Lydian coins were of electrum, a natural alloy of gold and silver, and King Croesus is credited with the Croeseid, the first true gold coins of standardised purity. Coins spread rapidly in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE.

Coinage
Image: Unknown / Photography by CNG coins · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

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First known
late 7th century BCE
Where
Lydia (Anatolia)
Credited to
Kingdom of Lydia

Also arose independentlyChina (Guanzhuang) (640–550 BCE)

NoteGuanzhuang in China is the oldest securely dated minting site, and Aegina has also been proposed for the first coins.

Built onCopper smeltingc. 5000 BCE

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See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Coinage. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/coinage
MLA
“Coinage.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/coinage. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Coinage.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/coinage.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Coinage’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/coinage (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻