Painting of a man weighing coins on a small balance while a woman beside him turns the pages of an illuminated book. — Quinten Massys, The Moneylender and his Wife (1514).
Image: Quinten Massys, The Moneylender and his Wife (1514), Louvre · Public domain

A Knaph story

The Story of Money

How people came to trust silver, coins, paper and numbers in a ledger

c. 2000 BCE – 2014

From loans of silver on Babylonian clay to money backed by nothing but trust: coins, paper notes, interest, banks and inflation, and the long argument about what money really is.

A Knaph story

The Story of Money

How people came to trust silver, coins, paper and numbers in a ledger

c. 2000 BCE – 2014

From loans of silver on Babylonian clay to money backed by nothing but trust: coins, paper notes, interest, banks and inflation, and the long argument about what money really is.