[JumpCrisscross]

> Bronze age? No. Once gold leaves the sovereigns borders, it is a neutral money

"Neutral money" has no meaning in an era when information travels at the same speed as trade. (It arguably lacks any meaning today.)

Bronze Age civilizations didn't have the surplus labor to haul around gold. (Nor to test it.) Though they didn't have coins, they used token money--from engraved clay and stone markers to shells and beads. Commodity money was traded in representative form locally and physically over long distances. Commodities, not bullion, were used because they preserved value over distance--a Hittite trader couldn't know what a gold bullion would exchange for in Hispania or Egypt when they got there.

[akimball]

The attachment of provenance to an item makes it non-fungible, removing it's moneyness, until and unless that history can be removed.

Just-so stories based on implausible premises -”didnt have surplus labor" lol- are conspicuously unpersuasive.

[JumpCrisscross]

> stories based on implausible premises -”didnt have surplus labor" lol- are conspicuously unpersuasive

Versus stories about neutral money?

Insufficient labor is a hypothesis. The archaeological evidence is engraved clay and stone markers. Long-distance trades settled with commodities. Bullion being traded between kings and kingdoms, seldom by merchants, and abandoned stores of value holding jewelry, precious stones and spices.

International trade in multipolar worlds does fine without a "neutral" money.