Latest / Trade Routes That Changed Human History Forever — Fexingo History / The Silk Road's Secret Currency: Silk Bolts as Money
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about what moved along the Silk Road — spices, horses, paper, porcelain. But one commodity was so universal that it literally became money: silk itself. Luna: Silk as currency? You mean people paid for things with lengths of fabric? Lucas: Exactly. And not just in China — across Central Asia, India, and even into the Abbasid caliphate, silk bolts functioned as a trusted medium of exchange. It started in the Han dynasty, around the 2nd century BCE. The state produced standardized silk rolls — each one a fixed width and length — and used them to pay soldiers and officials, who then used them to buy goods. Lucas: By the Tang dynasty, it was deeply embedded. The Tang Code actually has specific laws about silk currency — penalties for counterfeiting, regulations on quality. You could be executed for producing fake silk bolts. Luna: That's a serious penalty for fabric. Lucas: Well, it wasn't just fabric — it was the backbone of the economy. And it connects to something I want to mention briefly. This show is entirely listener-supported; we don't run ads. A small group of listeners chips in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's what allows us to make episodes like this, digging into these specific details. It keeps the whole thing ad-free and independent. Luna: Yeah, and we're really grateful for that support. It makes a difference. Lucas: So back to silk currency. One of the most fascinating examples comes from the 8th century, during the Tang. The government had these huge storehouses in Chang'an filled with silk. When the treasury needed to pay the army or buy horses from the Uyghurs, they'd just release bolts of silk into circulation. But there was a problem — too much silk. In 758 CE, the market in Chang'an was flooded, and the value of silk collapsed. Merchants stopped accepting it at face value, and you had this weird situation where the state had to start accepting grain and cloth as tax payments instead. Luna: So inflation of silk? That's not something you hear about every day. Lucas: Right. And the Tang tried to fix it by recalling old silk and reissuing new, higher-quality bolts — sort of like a currency reform. But the real test came on the Silk Road itself. Caravans crossing the Taklamakan Desert carried silk not just as trade goods but as cash. Archaeologists found a hoard at a site called Dandan Uiliq, in what's now Xinjiang — it's a ruined Buddhist temple in the middle of nowhere, and buried under the floor were dozens of silk bolts, neatly folded, probably hidden during a time of unrest. Lucas: That hoard, discovered by a team from the British Museum, gives us a snapshot of how silk currency worked in practice. The bolts were of varying quality — some raw, some finished — and they were bundled in groups, almost like denominations. It's the closest thing we have to a Silk Road wallet. Luna: Did other empires try to copy this? I know the Byzantines had their own silk industry. Lucas: They did, but they never managed to make silk into a currency. The Byzantine state controlled silk production tightly — the famous imperial monopoly — but they never standardized it into a unit of account. Partly because they didn't have the same volume of supply as China, and partly because their economy was already monetized with gold and bronze coins. Silk currency worked where coinage was scarce or unreliable, which was a lot of Central Asia. Lucas: There's also a fascinating account from Du Huan, a Chinese soldier captured at the Battle of Talas in 751 CE. He ended up traveling through the Abbasid caliphate for over a decade, and he wrote about seeing Chinese silk used as currency in Baghdad. He says merchants preferred it to silver because it was lighter and easier to divide. Luna: So even after the Tang lost at Talas, their silk was still trusted currency. Lucas: Exactly. The silk itself carried the reputation of the state that produced it, regardless of political control. That's the power of a commodity currency — it's valuable because it's useful. You can always make clothes out of it if the economy collapses. Lucas: But there was a dark side. The demand for silk currency put pressure on peasant weavers. They had to meet strict government quotas for length and quality, and if they failed, they faced harsh punishments. And the state often confiscated silk from farmers at below-market rates to mint its currency. Luna: So the same system that facilitated trade also exploited the producers. Luna: It really makes you think about what we use as money today. Lucas: And how arbitrary it all is. Silk, shells, gold, paper — it only works because we agree it does. For centuries, on one of the longest trade routes in history, that agreement was woven into a simple strip of cloth.