Gold and Silver Coins Stored as Bullion in India During Roman Times

Gold and silver have a tremendous store of value and portability and it can increase value over time; a small amount can purchase anything during any period. Paper currency, on the other hand, can fall victim to corrupt governments, the lack of faith in them, and the disastrous monetary policy governments engage in such as printing money continuously, causing runaway inflation.

Gold and silver prices have fluctuated in the upward direction lately, responding to the economic uncertainty, the out-of-control printing of money to defray the economic losses due to the unnecessary and panicked COVID-19 -19 lockdowns around the world, and the political instability and violence in the U.S. ginned up by the radical left for the last four years.

In 1775 Roman gold and silver coins were found buried in southern India. Since Indians could not spend these monies in their respective economies, it was assumed that the buried cache of coins was derived from trade.  But what would the Indians do with such Roman coins since they could not be spent in their economy? Historians assumed that the only possible explanation would be that the Indian merchants were storing the gold coins as bullion.

Alexander the Great (336-323 B.C.) first connected the Mediterranean world with India. The usual land routes used before were prevented by the Parthian Empire of Persia. The merchants started using the sea to avoid the harsher land crossing and those who would stand in the way of their trade, including highway robbers.

Hippalus, a Greek merchant, is alleged to have discovered in the first century B.C. how to use the southwest monsoon to sail to and from India. For forty days in July and August, merchants who knew how the monsoon winds blew, sailed from Arabian ports to the Malabar ports in India’s southwestern coast. In December and January, having completed their trades, merchants returned via the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. According to historians, trade links were made with Sri Lanka, Burma, Malaya, Vietnam, and perhaps China.  https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/A-glimpse-of-rare-Roman-coins-at-Museum/articleshow/7315542.cms

The coins, weighing the same amount regardless of which emperor’s head was depicted on the coin, made it convenient for the Indians to collect the coins as bullion. I am not sure if the practice of shaving coin edges for gold dust was in place during those times. Such a practice, of course, would have made coins weigh differently if the scales were sensitive enough to pick up the slight change in weight.

“The scholar Pliny reported that it was the unvarying quality of Roman coins – which were all the same weight and of the same gold and silver content despite the heads of successive emperors imprinted upon them - which impressed the King of Sri Lanka and inclined him favorably toward the honest traders of Rome.” (The Classical World, p. 153)

Even though Indian merchants did not use Roman coins as a direct exchange, they liked the designs on them and made cheap imitations of terracotta coins which were worn around on a leather chain as jewelry.

When export restrictions were imposed and Nero debased silver coins during his reign, the Indian merchants lost faith in the bullion value of Roman coins and refused to accept any more in trade.

As a substitute, Indian merchants accepted high-quality tableware, glass, linen, coral, lamps, worked gems, and wine. Evidence of pottery fragments was found in 1940 at Arikamedu near Pondicherry, a Roman trading station.

As demonstrated by archeological digs, Arikamedu stored Roman pots and dishes, fine wines, and tableware. Jewels were fashioned in Arikamedu’s workshops which also dyed muslin cloth. Arretine ware (made in today’s Arezzo, Italy) was found, including an intact bowl with molded decorations.

Ships were said to arrive from India with wonders such as a “large river turtle, snakes, and a partridge ‘as big as a vulture.’” Pearls and precious stones were brought into Rome.  “Imports flooded into Rome as 120 monsoon-borne ships sailed each year from Roman-controlled Egypt to India, to pick up their precious cargoes.” A mural found in Ostia, Italy, depicts a Roman trading ship from the second to third century A.D. being loaded with goods.

According to historians, the trading agents for this commerce were the Greeks from Alexandria. They dealt in spices, pepper, muslin cloth, perfumes, ivory, gemstones, and pearls.

During the third century AD, when direct trade with India stopped, reflecting the overall commercial decline in the Roman Empire, Arabs and Persians took over the trade.

Canal Fulton, Ohio, a Historical Role in Transportation and Commerce

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

Canal Fulton is a small town in Stark County, Ohio, with a rich history of transportation and commerce. You wouldn’t know it today because Canal Fulton is a sleepy town of 5,479 (2010 census) along the historic Ohio & Erie Canal or what is left of it.

Three small villages developed along the Tuscarawas River. Fulton, originally baptized after a local pioneer, Ben Fulton, changed its name to Canal Fulton in 1832, to include the historic Ohio Canal now a block away from the center of town.

This tiny town is home to 80 buildings and sites listed on the National Historic Register.  Most interestingly, it is home to a mile and a quarter of the original 308 miles of the famous Ohio & Erie Canal. And I had the privilege to take a leisurely ride through history aboard the St. Helena III Canal Boat at the breakneck speed of 3 MPH.  This boat is a concrete replica of the second wooden boat built in 1970 which sits on stilts in dry dock in all its restored former glory.

The original wooden boat had rotted out beyond repair. A sepia photograph still exists of the original St. Helena. The second boat built in 1970 stayed in service for 18 years, pulled by mules. When the mules went to mule heaven, the concrete replica boat was built and Percheron horses have been used ever since to pull the boat along the canal.

Helena II restored
Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

Surprisingly, concrete does float. For over an hour, time stood still while we were pulled along the canal by two Percheron horses, named Dan and Will, draft horses from the Perche province in western France, owned by a local Amish farmer. We were entertained by the amazing stories and banjo music of our lovely guide Ron, a retired civil engineer.

Ducks, turtles, fish, water snakes, and other critters highlighted the gentle glide on water and on the wings of time while cyclists, runners, walkers, and moms pushing strollers on the right tow path bank passed us laughing. In the old days the bank was only used as a tow path to pull boats.

We experienced life in the slow lane at the cruising speed of 3 MPH as it was for our great  grandfathers. The boat had no oars, no sails, no propellers, no engine, it only floated, as long as it was pulled by ropes. The boat was steered along the canal by a young lady who worked the tiller and the Percheron horses pulled the ropes, guided along the banks by two young Amish men who also helped pull the heavy ropes to allow the boat to turn once we reached the end of the remaining canal which terminated in a water lock.

Tranquility on the Canal Fulton

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

 

The four ft. deep canal could accommodate flat bottom boats that carried people and cargo. The boat we floated on was a modified freighter. Back in the days, it would have been really uncomfortable for people to ride in such a boat.  

End of Canal Fulton, Ohio

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

 

We floated under a wrought iron bridge built in 1890 for one wagon pulled by horses. It is the only bridge surviving – the rest were made of wood and had rotted out. The bridge is now used solely by pedestrians who cross the canal.

Canal Erie

Photo: Wikipedia

 

The Tuscarawas River flows to the right of the canal bank for over 100 miles before it meets the Ohio River. The Tuscarawas River was never used for navigation because it was too untamed and dangerous and in summer time too dry. But the fearless and experienced Indians floated their canoes along the many rivers in Ohio for centuries before the settlers came.

Dan & Will, Percheron horses

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

 

When Ohio became a state in 1803, it was one of the poorest states and last among the states in existence. By 1820 there were 580,000 residents.

In those days people in Ohio had no means of transportation except on foot or horse back. To go on horse, you had to hack away a four ft. wide trail. The dirt trail would turn into a quagmire in spring time and into a dry rocky hill in summer that could easily break a horse’s ankle. Trails meandered through large and dense forests. There were no towns, no stores, no hospitals, very few neighbors, just rivers to navigate on and Lake Erie.

Land was really cheap, $1.25 per acre, but in those days, the average person who lived in the village made $200 a year. Life expectancy was really low, 38 years. One out of five children did not live to see their first birthday. Many died in infancy and few adults lived to be 80. “When you turned 40, you might see an undertaker sneak up on you,” joked Ron.

Canal Fulton

Photo: Wikipedia

 

The State of Ohio looked at five ways to develop the Ohio River and Lake Erie and they chose two. The first one was this artificial canal, the Ohio Erie Canal, from the Ohio River to Lake Erie, 308 miles. It was built by the State of Ohio not the federal government.  Back then if you had the money, you could start digging immediately after the surveys were completed, no permits, applications, and regulations.

Canal Fulton

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

 

According to archives, “On July 4, 1825, at Licking Summit south of Newark, work began on the Ohio & Erie Canal.” The canal was built over a seven-year period; by 1827 they were already digging the ditch we were floating on, the following year they filled it up with water, and started to float wooden boats on it, 14 ft. wide, 80 ft. long so they could have two-way traffic  on the 40 ft. wide canal.

“On July 3, 1827, two years after the ground breaking, Governor Trimble and the canal commission boarded a canal boat in Akron and the next day arrived in Cleveland. By 1832 the entire 308 mile route of the Ohio & Erie was open to traffic.”

Immigrants from Ireland dug the canal and the channels and built the tow path. Immigrants from Germany did the stone work for the locks and dams. Five thousand men were working at any one time on the project. These guys worked six days a week, sunrise to sunset, for 30 1/3 cents per day in cash. Cash money did not exist in those days in the State of Ohio. Back in those days everything was done by barter.

Started in 1825, by 1832 the canal was completed to the Ohio River, 308 miles long, at a cost of $16 million. Today, guide Ron told us, “In Columbus, Ohio, we burn through $16 million in two hours.” Because it did not have the money to build the canal system, the State of Ohio floated bonds; it took until 1903 to pay them off, about the time the Wright Brothers “invented the first successful airplane.” https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/wright-brothers/online/fly/1903/

During construction, cholera, dysentery, and typhoid fever made workers sick for a month and a half, with no hospitals, and limited treatment.

The canal was only 40 ft. wide and it was difficult to turn boats around. Every few miles there was a wider area where boats could be turned around or tied to a tree for the night. There was enough room to tie up to fifteen boats. Boats were tied so close to each other that you could walk across their roofs. Many boats were operated by families and children as young as six became part of the crew.

Agricultural products, flour, grain, coal, and other raw materials were ferried across the canals. There were 146 locks on the canal and it took a lot of time to clear a lock. On a busy day, there were 100 boats waiting to go through a lock. Water level was maintained through dams and sluices.

Life on a canal boat that carried passengers was miserable, hot, crowded, and painful. The sanitation buckets were dumped into the water, the very same water they used later boiled to drink and to make tea.

The concrete St. Helena III boat could carry about 80 tons of cargo, no benches, chairs, or anything of comfort, just bunk beds and a pot belly stove. For families who operated the boat, it was an uncomfortable home for 8-9 months of the year.

The Miami & Erie Canal was 250 miles long once and connected Lake Erie with the Ohio River; the state still owns 75 miles of it, the largest watered section is 44 miles and is located along the Loramie Summit. The hydraulics are maintained by the Division of Parks and Recreation employees.

The remaining watered section of the Ohio & Erie Canal is also located on the summit, maintained as a water supply for local industries.

By 1850s the railroads came to the Fulton area at 12 MPH; even jumping off tracks or breaking down, trains were still four times as fast as canal boats and could pull much more than 80 ton of cargo at a time.

 “The canals prospered until 1855, the year revenue receipts were their highest. At its peak, Ohio's canal system consisted of almost 1,000 miles of main line canals, feeders and side cuts. Located in forty-four of Ohio's eighty-eight counties, the canals touched the lives of all the state's citizens. After 1855 the impact of the railroads began to be felt, and by 1903 water sales income from selling canal water to businesses and industries exceeded the income from freight carried on the canal.” http://parks.ohiodnr.gov/canals

 

 

 

U.S. and the World by 2030

“Its soul, its climate, its equality, liberty, laws, people, and manners. My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!"

                                   - Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Monroe, June 17, 1785

What will the world look like and what kind of country will America be in the next 15-20 years at the rate of the fast-paced involuntary and hopeless change that is aimed at pushing us “forward” to disaster?

The “unprecedented change” will drive “60 percent of the world’s population to mega-cities by 2030, and competition for food, water, and energy resources could increase the possibilities of violent conflict.” (Frederick Kempe, President and CEO, Atlantic Council)

“The United States must urgently address its domestic economic and political dysfunctions.” The Atlantic Council, a think tank, wrote a 57-page report, “Envisioning 2030: U.S. Leadership in a Post-Western World,” to “help prepare the Obama Administration and its global partners for unprecedented change.” (http://www.acus.org/publication/envisioning-2030-us-strategy-post-western-world)

The report predicts a future of “vast economic and political volatility, environmental catastrophe, and conflicting, inward-looking nationalisms that would be unlike any period that the United States has seen before.”  “President Obama will be setting the tone and direction for U.S. policy in a post-Western world.” (Atlantic Council, Executive Summary, p. 5)

As the powers that be are actively and speedily working to affect this outcome, the global order champions “predict” that wealth will shift from west to east. Learning Mandarin may be a good idea - China is recognized in the report as “the most crucial single factor that will shape the international system in 2030.” (Atlantic Council, Executive Summary, p. 7)

Is a post-western world a world without the United States as the economic superpower, benefactor, and military protector of the globe’s ungrateful nations? The 20^th century economic guru of the liberal elites, John Maynard Keynes, said in 1937, “…the idea of the future being different from the present is so repugnant to our conventional modes of thought and behavior that we, most of us, offer a great resistance to acting on it in practice.”

The National Intelligence Council discusses in its December 2012 166-page paper, “Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds,” the mega trends, game-changers, Black Swans, and potential worlds in the next 15-20 years. (http://globaltrends2030.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/global-trends-2030-november2012.pdf)

Food, water, and energy sources will become problematic due to growing populations in emerging markets and policies adopted at home that favor expensive green energy, wind, solar, and biofuels, preventing exploration of existing cheaper domestic resources of fossil fueled energy. As one commodity becomes an issue, it will affect the supply and demand of the others. Water needs will grow by a predicted 40 percent.

Energy supply may be obtained from fracking. Hydraulic fracturing (fracking), developed in the 1940s, could extract oil and gas from shales at much lower cost. However, the environmentalists' objections over the contamination of water, earth quake generation, and methane emissions, have slowed down the use of hydraulic fracturing, particularly in Europe. China, with the largest shale reserves, does not have enough equipment and water to extract gas through fracking.

The EPA will set back any logical resolution to addressing human needs as it will interfere with its myriad of regulations via the Clean Air Act in the misguided effort to protect some tiny fish to the detriment of humans.

NIC modeling predicts that prices for agricultural commodities will rise, impacting poorer countries the worst as they depend on corn which is also used for biofuel. Crop disease, drought, and bad weather events could compound the problem. (p. 34)

Genetically modified crops could be the way to provide sufficient and affordable food and fuel by using transgenic technologies and precision agriculture via drought-tolerant, salt-tolerant crops, micro-irrigation, and hydroponic greenhouses. Pricing water for farmers in order to discourage waste could be implemented. Currently, farmers pay one-tenth of the price that households and industry pay for water. (NIC, p. 97)

Poverty will be reduced as the result of the U.N.’s efforts to re-distribute wealth across the globe to third world nations, carbon-taxing and punishing developed nations for their success. In U.N.’s view, the wealth created by the west was achieved at the expense of the rest of the world. These retrograde totalitarian regimes bear no responsibility for their endemic corruption and constant religious and tribal wars.

There will be a diffusion of power without hegemony, dominated by control of regional coalitions. China, India, Brazil will be major players. China will become the largest economy. Europe, Japan, Russia, U.S. will continue to decline. Countries like Colombia, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Turkey will remain “second-order players.”

Aging countries like Japan and Western Europe, who are committing demographic suicide by having less and less babies, below the replacement value of 2.1, will experience economic decline and loss of national identity. Russia will suffer population decline. An important factor will be the statistics of Russian men who die at relatively younger age because of alcohol abuse, tobacco, and related accidents.

There are 80 countries currently with a median age of 25 or less. Eighty percent of all ethnic and armed conflicts come from countries with youthful populations.  By 2030, there will be 50 countries left with youthful populations. Fertility rates in these areas range from 4-6 children per family. Clusters of projected youthful states are:

-          Equatorial belt of the Sub-Saharan Africa

-          Middle East

-          Americas: Bolivia, Guatemala, Haiti

-          Pacific Rim: East Timor, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands

-          Pakistan, Afghanistan, southeast Turkey (Kurds)

-          Israel (Orthodox Jews)  (NIC report, p. 23)

Rapid changes and a shift in power could overwhelm governments.  A “governance gap” may evolve that could be replaced by regional governance of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), a rich individual, or a group of powerful elites.

Natural disasters such as staple crop catastrophes, tsunamis, hurricanes, erosion and depletion of soils, and solar geomagnetic storms might cause governments to collapse. (NIC report on Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, p. 52)

NIC’s models show an augmentation of the global middle class, health care advances, new technologies, new communication, and poverty reduction.  NIC analysis predicts the most rapid growth of the middle class to occur in Asia - India and China. (NIC report, p. 9)

Pathogens crossing from animals to humans can and have caused political and economic turmoil.

Respiratory pathogens can travel very fast across the globe. Prion disease caused Creutzfeldt-Jakob in humans; a bat corona virus caused SARS in 2002. Black Death killed one third of the European population; measles and smallpox killed 90 percent of the native populations in the Americas; the 1918 flu pandemic killed 50 million worldwide. HIV/AIDS jumped to humans almost fifty years before it was recognized. TB, gonorrhea, Staphylococcus Aureus (staph) could re-emerge with a vengeance. Genetic engineering could release new pathogens in addition to those occurring naturally. (NIC, p. 14)

Nationalism is likely to intensify in regions such as East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East based on territorial disputes, religious beliefs, tribal vendettas, and theocratic ideologies. Although planners expected urbanization to promote secularization, the opposite occurred in many settings; it encouraged religious identity, particularly among Muslims.

NIC’s modeling sees Russia as fighting the battle of “integrating its rapidly growing ethnic Muslim population in the face of a shrinking ethnic Russian population.” The changing ethnic mix is already a source of growing social tensions. (p. 83)

The flow of human capital from the poorest countries, to middle-income, and to rich countries will cause social disruptions, unrest, and problems for urban governments. Increased urban population from internal migration and external immigration will cause food and water shortages. (p. 31)

Patterns of trade reveal the following major economic clusters: Europe (EU), Asia, North America (NAFTA), and Latin America.

Two-thirds of European trade takes place within the EU; NAFTA encompasses 40 percent of U.S. trade. East Asian intra-regional trade is 53 percent. Latin America intra-regional trade is 35 percent (excluding Mexico). Latin America is pursuing EU-type regional governance, the Union of Latin American Nations (UNISUR). (Atlantic Council report, p. 26)

National Intelligence Council’s (NIC) modeling for 2030 includes four potential worlds:

-          “Stalled Engines” (globalization stalls and interstate conflict grows)

-          “Fusion” (China and U.S. cooperate; it does not look promising so far)

-          “Ginni-out-of-the-bottle” (U.S. is no longer the world’s policeman and pocketbook, inequalities explode, no more international welfare, some countries prosper, some countries fail)

-          “Nonstate World” (NGOs, multinational businesses, academic institutions, wealthy individuals, megacities such as those envisioned by U.N. Agenda 21 become the leaders; “increasing global public opinion consensus among elites form hybrid coalitions” – a page right out of the U.N. Agenda 21 goals)

The 2030 global modeling points to potential Black Swans such as Euro/EU collapse due to “unruly Greek exit causing eight times more collateral damage than the Lehmann Brothers,” nuclear war, WMD, cyber-attacks to the power grid and the Internet, solar geomagnetic storms, a democratic or collapsed China, a reformed Iran (wishful thinking), and global anarchy, if U.S. power collapses or retreats and no other power is willing, capable, or able financially to provide international order.