Following the non-money trail

Studying inscriptions and inconsistencies in the most detailed accounts of temple offerings and listings of the workforce, the authors show how the ​“temple economy”, where ​“deities come first” and offerings were a way for the social elites to manifest their wealth, co-existed along the ​“general economy”, in which barter exchanges were dominant.

This is a fascinating approach of the apparent paradox that still puzzle us nowadays: a complex social organization — and even an imperial one –, with computation mastery and sustained commercial exchanges with neighboring kingdoms which had developed their own currencies, remained a ​“non-money” system during centuries.