Dacian bracelet from Sarmizegetusa
Photo: Wikipedia
Historians agree that some of the Roman military campaigns were motivated by the need to find and control ore reserves required for coinage. Monetary payments were made for a while using un-coined bronze called aes rude and cast bronze ingots called aes signatum.
Rome eventually built its own mint and coined silver denarii and smaller coins of bronze. Continue reading
I remember our daily food always coming from a long, long line at the end of which was a loaf of bread, a liter of milk, a stick of butter, a bottle of murky cooking oil, or a kilo of bones with traces of meat and fat on them.
The interminable lines looked like this bread line pictured here. We never knew what was sold at the end of a line we happened to come upon, but we knew we needed whatever people lined up to buy, so we joined the line.
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