Katlynn, it's hard to know exactly how old money is. It appears some kind of payment was being used as far back as 2200 BC in Egypt!!

Bartering, or trading one thing for another, probably started long before that. Bartering worked like this: If you grew corn and offered it to the cobbler to make shoes for your kids, the cobbler would take the corn and make an agreed-upon number of pairs of shoes. However, if the cobbler had all the corn he needed, he would say "No" and the result was no shoes. So, it was found that bartering didn't always work well. So people created a system of money with things that everyone could agree on would always have a certain value. People traded salt, leaves, shells, beads, fur and seeds, almost anything at first. Ancient Africans used cowrie shells. Native Americans used wampum --- polished shells strung together as a necklace or belt.

The first metal coins date back to 700 BC to the Lydians, a group of people that lived in what is now Turkey. The use of coins later spread to Greece and Rome.

Paper money was first invented in China about 140 BC. The first bank notes carried a guarantee that they could be traded any time for coins. The artwork on the paper note showed how many coins it represented. When the Explorer Marco Polo returned from China, people didn't believe the Chinese used paper for money. Eventually use of it spread to Europe, mostly in England, first used as "emergency money." Regular bank notes were adopted in the 1600s. Copper coins were used in Scandinavia in the 1600s.

Did You Know?

The word "money" came from the Italian word "moneta." Juno Moneta was a Roman goddess whose geese saved Rome from an attack by the Gauls. Romans built a temple to honor her and coin mint next to it. The coins had her image on them. "Moneta" was the word for both coin and mint, and eventually the word "money."