A History of the World in 100 Objects: Gold Coin of Croesus

The Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, retells the history of human development from the first stone axe to the credit card, using 100 selected objects from the Museum. Neil describes how a powerful new state found a dramatic way to help run its increasingly complex economy and trading networks - by inventing the world's first proper coins. Croesus was a king in what is now western Turkey and his kingdom was called Lydia. It is remarkable that over 2,000 years later we still have an expression that celebrates his wealth. Neil considers how money, in the form of coins, first came about and describes the hugely complex methods of creating them. And whatever happened to Croesus?