<P> Many cultures around the world developed the use of commodity money, that is, objects that have value in themselves as well as value in their use as money . Ancient China, Africa, and India used cowry shells . </P> <P> The Mesopotamian civilization developed a large - scale economy based on commodity money . The shekel was the unit of weight and currency, first recorded c. 3000 BCE, referring to a specific weight of barley, and equivalent amounts of silver, bronze, copper etc . The Babylonians and their neighboring city states later developed the earliest system of economics as we think of it today, in terms of rules on debt, legal contracts and law codes relating to business practices and private property . Money was not only an emergence, it was a necessity . </P> <P> The Code of Hammurabi, the best - preserved ancient law code, was created c. 1760 BCE (middle chronology) in ancient Babylon . It was enacted by the sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi . Earlier collections of laws include the code of Ur - Nammu, king of Ur (c. 2050 BCE), the Code of Eshnunna (c. 1930 BCE) and the code of Lipit - Ishtar of Isin (c. 1870 BCE). These law codes formalized the role of money in civil society . They set amounts of interest on debt, fines for "wrongdoing", and compensation in money for various infractions of formalized law . </P> <P> It has long been assumed that metals, where available, were favored for use as proto - money over such commodities as cattle, cowry shells, or salt, because metals are at once durable, portable, and easily divisible . The use of gold as proto - money has been traced back to the fourth millennium BCE when the Egyptians used gold bars of a set weight as a medium of exchange, as had been done earlier in Mesopotamia with silver bars . </P>

Different types of money from around the world