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Ancient Banking System

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Cyrus Shahmiri View Drop Down
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  Quote Cyrus Shahmiri Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Ancient Banking System
    Posted: 26-Sep-2009 at 12:17

It was very interesting for me when I read from Shahnameh of Ferdosi (c. 935–1020) that the great ancient Persian king Khosrow II (Khosrow Parviz) says:

Be Kaisar separam hame yek be yek
Az in pas nevseshte ferestimo check

I give them all to Caesar one by one
Hereafter we send documents and cheques

It seems there were some types of modern economic relations between ancient Persian and Roman empires!
 
More info about Cheque: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheque
 
The English word cheque comes from the Arabic ṣakk (صكّ), itself the Arabicized of '(چک) pronounced check' in Persian, which is a written document or letter or note of credit Muslim merchants -and everybody else- adopted to carry out their trading. The concept of ṣakk appeared in European documents around 1220, mostly in areas neighbouring Muslim Spain and North Africa; south France and Italy.
 
The cheque had its origins in the ancient banking system, in which bankers would issue orders at the request of their customers, to pay money to identified payees.
 
The ancient Romans are believed[4] to have used an early form of cheque known as praescriptiones in the first century BC. During the 3rd century AD, banks in Persia and other territories in the Persian Empire under the Sassanid Empire issued letters of credit known as chakks.
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opuslola View Drop Down
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  Quote opuslola Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Apr-2010 at 14:31
Cyrus, you have mentioned one of the best kept secrets of the past! Look out or the Lombards will be after you? Laugh!

Seriously, the manner of making a payment, in those "ancient of days" was a perilous move! If one were to send actually currency (gold or silver) or some other precious commodity, as payment for some other commodity,then one was most often faced with the problem of "pirates", which, if you have read enough history, seemed to be a most apparent problem in the world for most of the time that history came to be recorded! In the Med. world, for example, it seems there were very few periods that piracy was placed under such command that ships of every nation could sail without fear of loss! One of those periods seems to have even occured under the rule of the Ottoman fleet, and one earlier one seems to have occured under Roman fleets! (Although I might consider one as the other?)

So, it seems, from early times, there existed another method to secure payment for shipments of needed goods, without fear of the method of payment falling into enemy or pirate hands (note so called pirates or priveteers, also worked for the enemy sometimes, of not most of the time!

So, it appears something quite close to our modern "Letter of Credit" (LoC) supposedly existed a few thousand years ago or even more?

I just do not have the time or patience to make a great deal out of this, but suffice it to say, I have in the past actually persued this idea and written a great deal about it, and, as a result, I have come to a few conclusions, which may or may not be entirely my own!

Time constrains me at the present, but I shall continue and make a short (for me at least) presentation in my next post here.

Regards,
http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/history/
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Baal Melqart View Drop Down
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  Quote Baal Melqart Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Jun-2011 at 15:49


The idea that cheques were used during the Sassanid period is not too far-fetched because of the constraints gold commodity had in terms of safety of transport. Though, I seriously doubt that it was widespread enough to be used commonly by merchants because I haven't heard of the existence of banks back then.
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TheAlaniDragonRising View Drop Down
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  Quote TheAlaniDragonRising Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Jun-2011 at 21:30
What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.
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Nick1986 View Drop Down
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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Jun-2011 at 19:05
Was this the reason the Romans went to war with the Sassanids (to avoid repaying their debts)?
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Baal Melqart View Drop Down
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  Quote Baal Melqart Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Jun-2011 at 19:10
hehe, Greeks repeating themselves, are we to expect a war between them and Iran?
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medenaywe View Drop Down
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  Quote medenaywe Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Jun-2011 at 00:05
You mean war among Greeks and EU,for money debt they have had!LOL
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