IN THE BEGINNING WAS
THE WORD
Every conclusion arrived at as a result of study of the fragments of
information available in respect to money and its creators in the world of
the Ancient Civilizations, indicates the existence of a far reaching
conspiracy in respect to monetary issuance influencing the progression of
man's history in the earliest times of which written record exists. It is
also outstandingly clear that it was parent to that acknowledged and most
obvious conspiracy such as exists today. 1
The whole notion of the institution of precious metals by weight as common
denominator of exchanges, internationally and nationally, cannot but have
been disseminated by a conspiratorial organization fully aware of the extent
of the power to which it would accede, could it but maintain control over
bullion supplies and the mining which brought them into being in the first
place.
Clearly such notion had originally come into
being during that historically distant period when first of all free silver
began to be extensively used as a convenient and highly portable commodity
in settlement of balances outstanding in foreign trade; certainly as far
back as Neolithic times.
This fact was indicated by the evidence existing
that values (and by inference money) were already expressed in terms of
silver by weight at the time of the Azag-Bau Dynasty at Kish in Mesopotamia
(3268-2897 B.C.); although in a sense perhaps narrow and strictly national.
According to tablets unearthed recording a sale of land, the sellers were
known as "The eaters of the silver of the field". 2
This expression clearly showed a connection
between the conception of money as an abstract unit in circulation, and
silver, the tangible material on which the symbols of this money were later
recorded. Such silver would then be valued according to the ancient customs
of the international trade routes which were manifested in the rules of the
traveling merchants who controlled these routes; these rules being
established towards the better regulation of exchanges between themselves.
In other words, as a result of the establishment of the custom of settlement
of balances in external trade by silver bullion by weight, it seems that a
system of values had grown up in the cities of Mesopotamia, over what period
of time it would be impossible to say for sure, in terms of those accepted
values of definite weights of silver bullion in such external trade,
relative to the staples of life: barley, dates, etc.
That sales are recorded in the 4th Millennium B.C. means that even at that
time there was a clear conception of the significance of the abstract
monetary unit, which is in itself an integral part of the law structure of
any state, for such sales were in terms of money. The true meaning of such a
concept being largely incomprehensible to most even as in this day, except
they were the truly initiated, those controlling the internal exchanges,
namely the priesthood and scribes, might well be excused if they early fell
into the error of expressing values in terms of the standard of values in
international trade.
This serious error brought about finally, not
only the collapse of that power through whose medium the god kings were best
able to serve their peoples, but also as a further consequence, the collapse
and fading of the meaning and benevolent purpose of the god kings
themselves.
With silver bullion controlled by an international and conspiratorial minded
group, as indeed it is obvious it must have been, considering the main
sources of silver supply as being far away from those centers of
civilization whose money depended on it and yet with people coming to equate
money, in actuality the law of the ruler, with value according to the law
created in the exchanges by the custom of the use of that same privately
controlled commodity, then it becomes quite clear that scarcity or plenty in
money, whatever way it was evinced in the circulation, depended on the
manipulations internationally of that group controlling the distribution of
precious metal bullion, and the plenty or scarcity they created, as was
convenient to them.
If there was no silver, why then ! there was no money, and prices fell.
Substitute gold for silver, and history seeming to fast repeat itself, we
have the condition of the European world of the last 2000 years.
If there was no gold, Why then again! There was
no money!
Hence was able to develop that conspiracy against mankind most exemplified
by a continuous propaganda of hate against all authority: in pre-antiquity
and antiquity against the many city gods, and in relatively modern times
against the kings that rose out of the ruins of that which had been Rome.
As those controlling totally the economic life of a state through monetary
creation and emission, must have felt that kings and gods were more of a
nuisance than anything else, the instigators of this conspiracy in whatever
place and era, obviously were those who first did the business of bankers;
the controllers of values, and consequently the economic life of the states
wherever the precious metal standard was used.
According to Sir Charles L. Woolley, excavator of the city of Ur in
Southern Mesopotamia, the unit of exchange in the days of the great city
states of Mesopotamia of the third and fourth Millennium B.C., and which
served, therefore, as common denominator of the value of goods and services,
was the measure of barley.
While however pointing out that gold and silver
came to pass from hand to hand, with a value dictated by their value with
reference to the constant value of a measure of barley, he asserts that the
salaries of government officials at the time of Hammurabai (about the
beginning of the second millennium B.C.) were assessed in barley but paid in
silver, such silver having neither stamp nor government guarantee 3
...
The notion therefore herein implied, of the numerous officials and labourers
of Hammurabai of Babylon waiting in line to have silver cut off from the
bullion bar, and weighed as against pay for the day, or the week, or the
month, as the case might have been, although offered with sincerity,
patently is as erroneous as that conception of the every day use in the
exchanges of the aes rude in a similar way, in which the classical scholars
and numismatists would have us believe; and which implied that the foreman
and his labourers in ancient Rome of the days of the kings also waited in
line after their day's labour, say, on the Circus Maximus, to have a
fragment of copper cut off and weighed in order that their wives might be
able to go to the market to purchase the evening meal. 4
Clearly the word silver in the texts means no more than the word Plata in
modern day Spanish, or Argent in modern day French. These words literally
translate as silver, but as money which they are most used to indicate, they
may be anything from grimy tattered paper note, to a silver peso, or to the
brass coin which may function as divisible thereof.
Similarly the word from the texts denoting
silver may be safely said to have meant that which passed for money, perhaps
exchangeable in the temple or the money shops for silver, but being in
itself anything which circulated, denoting multiple or divisible of the unit
o exchange; be it clay or wood or glass 5 or leather or papyrus
or stone.
Thus, as was the case in Sumeria indeed, long, long before the time of the
great Hammurabai once money' had come to be more of an abstract unit of
account based for its value in desirable goods and services, on the barter
power of a certain weight of silver bullion related to the constant value of
barley, 6 it vas no major advance for those who benefited most
from this conception, namely the bullion brokers and their satellites, the
money changers or barkers, to find a weak king and a corruptible priesthood,
who could be brought to lose sight of the total control of the city which
was the right of the god they served; and who might turn a blind eye to
those other more sinister activities by which the power of the Ziggurat was
further undermined.
Of those time Dawson in the Age of the Gods remarks:
"Originally the state and the temple
corporations were the only bodies which possessed the necessary
stability and resources for establishing widespread commercial
relations. Temple servants were sent on distant missions, provided with
letters of credit which enabled them to obtain supplies in other cities.
Moreover the temple was the bank of the
community through which money could be lent at interest and advances
made to the farmer on the security of his crop. Thus in the course of
the 3rd millennium there grew up in Mesopotamia a regular money economy
based on precious metals as standards of exchange, which stimulated
private wealth and enterprise and led to real capitalist development.
The temple and the palace remained the
centers of the economic life of the community but by their side and
under their shelter there developed a many sided activity wah found
expression in the guilds of the free craftsmen and the merchants, and
the private enterprise of the individual capitalist." 7
This information from Christopher Dawson
with the translation of the tablets before him, and every assistance no
doubt from those students in that particular field, is most illuminating;
but of the undertones of those highly significant years in man's period upon
this earth, he seems to see little, or he just does not choose to speculate
as to their nature.
Principal amongst those undertones, and quite possibly the force that
brought these changes about, may safely be assumed to be the secret and
private expansion of the total money supply effected primarily by the
issuance into circulation of false receipts for silver and other valuables
supposedly being held on deposit in thief proof vaults, or otherwise, for
safe custody.
Such receipts would be accepted by merchants instead of the actual metal,
and would function as money, and would be an addition to the total money
supply, though not understood as such by the rulers who would thus easily be
inveigled into lending their sanction to seemingly harmless practices; or at
least into turning a blind eye; especially if priesthood and scribes so
advised.
With that growth of the conception of private wealth which would
automatically follow on the acceptance of the idea of buying and selling, or
perhaps better put, preceded such idea of buying and selling as according to
a silver standard internationally accepted, such involvement of priesthood
and scribe would not be hard to achieve...
According to Sir Charles Woolley, trade seemed
to extend from the city of Ur, particularly during the so-called IIIrd
Dynasty, over the whole known world which certainly reached as far afield as
Europe 8 being carried on by means of letters of credit, bills of
exchange, and "promises to pay" (cheques), made out in terms of staple
necessities; of life expressed in terms of silver at valuation of barley
(probably at a given season of the year). 9
There also is no doubt that the merchant as representative of the god of the
city from which he journeyed, loaned money by which his customers were able
to make their purchases, such money merely being an abstraction indicated by
the figures on the clay tablet; in earlier days being backed by the
will-force of the god of the city, and in latter days by the promises of
silver issued by one who at that time would be the equivalent of today's
banker, and who, should such need arise, such as would be occasioned by the
temple withdrawing its sanction or permissiveness towards his activities
would be able to partially back his self-created abstract money which was
the reality of such promises, with actual silver.
Thus the caravaneer or traveling merchant gave credit. Whether his own or
that of the merchant for whom he was agent, or direct; from the Ziggurat
itself, dwelling place of the god, it functioned as a form of foreign aid
similar to the foreign aid of today.
Considering that the merchant in earlier times
operated solely with the credit of the temple that raised him up, while the
temple remained supreme, such foreign aid was instrument of state policy,
maintaining the servility of lesser states, while at the same time
maintaining the steady working capacity of the home manufactures, and
contented people in consequence.
The classes of the dominant power were content
that the manufacturies gave them daily labour, and the classes of the
subordinate power were able to buy the luxuries they craved, and the
necessities they needed as against money deducted from the credits loaned by
the dominant power. Repayment of these credits, as in today, was made by way
of return shipment of raw materials such as were needed for the
manufacturies of the dominant state.
That such raw materials were assessed in value
as according to the international value of silver related to the national
value of barley in the dominant state seems most likely.
However it is clear that with the growth of silver in circulation between
private persons, and between private persons and states, as now would become
an inevitability, that which had been total economic control from the gods
through his servants in the Ziggurat, was bypassed, and merchants were now
able to deal privately using their own credit, or powers of abstract money
creation.
They were also able, through their control of
distant mining operations, to afflict a previously dedicated priesthood with
thought of personal possession; and through the control of the manufacture
of weapons in distant places, they were able to arm warlike peoples towards
the destruction of whosoever they might choose.
Those merchants of whatever race they may have been, who voyaged to the
cities of Sumeria from places as far distant as the great cities of the
Indus valley civilization known today as Mohenjo-Daro and Harrapa, as is
clearly demonstrated by the Sumerian seals found at Mohenjo-Daro 10
and the seals from Mohenjo-Daro found at Ur, 11 and who were
without a doubt one of the main sources of precious metal supply in Sumeria,
12 came to realize that they could actually create that which
functioned as money with but the record incised by the stylus on the clay
tablet promising metal or money.
Obviously, as a result of this discovery which
depended on the confidence they were able to create in the minds of the
peoples of their integrity, provided they banded themselves together with an
absolute secrecy that excluded all other than their proven and chosen
brethren, they could replace the god of the city himself as the giver of
all. If so be they could institute a conception of a one god, their god, a
special god of the world, a god above all gods, then not merely the city, be
it Ur or Kish or Lagash or Uruk, but the world itself could be theirs, and
all that in it was...
A strange dream! One whose fulfilment they never
really expected!
Some evidence of the knowledge and previous existence of such practice of
issuance of false receipts as against supposed valuables on deposit for
safe-keeping clearly exists in the Law No. 7 of the great Hammurabai, which
same law was undoubtedly intended as a preventative to this sickness in
society, which, even at that day, may very well have been the cancer that
destroyed much that has been before.
According to Professor Bright, the Code of Hammurabai was but a revision of
two legal codes promulgated in Sumerian by Lipit-Ishtar of Isin, and in
Akkadian by the King of Eshnummua during the period of the breakup of that
power formerly wielded by the God at Ur, that is, at about the same time
that Ur was sacked by the Elamites in 1950 B.C., and Amorite and Elamite
political power was established over Northern and Southern Mesopotamia.
13
Both of these codes are well before the
Code of
Hammurabai, and are evidence of the latter being but a revision of law codes
existing in the days of UR-NAMMU, or before, UR-NAMMU being that most
outstanding ruler who reigned from 2278 B.C. to 2260 B.C. during the third
dynasty at Ur. 14
The severity of the penalty and the placing of the law so high in the code
leaves little doubt that it was directed against an evil that was by no
means new, and, who knows, may have been one of the deep seated causes of
the invasions that devastated Ur, both from the Gutim, 15 the
Elamites, the Amorites, and the Hittites; for no doubt of old, just as
today, Money Power was as busy arming the enemies of the people amongst whom
it sojourned, as that people themselves.
While the scholars do not appear to have paid any special attention to this
particular law, or to have attached to it any special significance, its true
intent and purpose is clear to anyone conversant with the origins of private
money issuance in modern times, as indicated by the familiar story of the
goldsmith's multiple receipts... 16
If a man buys silver or gold or slave, or slave girl, or ox or .sheep or ass
or anything else whatsoever from a [free] man's son or a free man's slave or
has received them for safe custody without witness or contract, that man is
a thief: he shall be put to death. 17
The requisite of witnesses and contract attesting to the true facts of
valuables on deposit, would to some extent obviate the danger of the
goldsmiths, silversmiths or traders, involved in a transaction, creating
receipts for valuables that did not exist, in safe custody or otherwise. It
was equally possible in ancient times as much as in modern times to
circulate such receipts as money lawfully instituted.
Provided a corrupted priesthood turned a blind eye to this practice and
loaned their sanction thereto, such fraudulent money or, in the misleading
euphemism of a corrupted world, "credit", would be equally effective in
foreign markets as in the home markets, if not more so because of the
greater danger of exposure of the criminal nature of this activity that
would undoubtedly exist in the home market.
The severity of the penalty required by this Law Number 7 of the Code of
Hammurabai, exercised by a strong and dedicated ruler, would have been an
absolute deterrent to such practice that since that time, and more
especially in modern times since the 16th Century A.D., has become so
indurated to a fixture... Its results are to be seen on every hand, not to
speak of the final result which though not yet arrived, else this book would
not be in existence, is clear.
The
Laws of Hammurabai, King of Babylon, just the same as those more
ancient codes of which they were revision, were directed towards the
regulation of life of nobleman, as well as freeman, merchant, or slave, and
no special concessions were given to either of these stations in life, even
if such stations in life were accepted as integral part of the structure of
the state life.
Euphemistic and misleading words such as
"businessman" or "financier" had not yet, it seems, been planted in the
vocabulary. By and large, the king still ruled in absolute, and his law
giving justice to all was carved in stone, and placed in the market place
for the highest or the lowest to understand clearly the rules by which he
must live...
Merchants were unequivocally described as such,
and law ruthlessly prescribed severe penalties for their corrupt conduct.
They were kept in place as a caste, not of the highest order, and, it would
appear, somewhat similar to the Hindu system, they served the priesthood and
nobility, and were conceded a place in life as an instrument whereby the
people generally might live a better life.
The Code of Hammurabai, revision of more ancient codes as it was,
does not reveal any particular regard towards this caste of persons.
However, as by the time of its promulgation, both privet property and
privately issued money seem to have been well established, it is to be
assumed that the ignorant of noble caste or otherwise, were already
deferring to that magic known as money, in much the same manner as they did
at all times through latter history when faced with the necessity of
compromise with privet money creative power, whose activities had been
permitted by foolish kings, and to whom such kings had even committed the
finances of the realm.
Such was most clearly illustrated during the
last four hundred years in England; perhaps more so than at any other time
in recorded history.
In the time of Hammurabai, King of Babylon, matters were by no means as
desperate as they are today. Merchandising was by no means regarded as an
end in itself, and a means whereby it was the right of ignoble men to
proffer any corruption to the people so long as it made "profit" for them,
and "interest" for the so-called barker who supplied the original "finances"
out of his secret and costless money- creative processes.
Money lending and merchandising as it is known,
still had not come to be a means whereby man-hating and therefore corrupt
secret societies might seek to overturn the tree of life itself by way of
sowing the seeds of decay in that true and natural order of life which had
been ordained from time immemorial.
Private money creators and the merchants their satellites, had at that time
by no means arrived at that point when they might conspire to present
complete defiance to the gods and their appointed, and as a small matter in
the way of their business, install jackasses, or whatever might be, in the
places of the mighty, as too often was the case in the latter days.
References
1 According to the review of Tragedy and
Hope Dr. Carroll Quigley; (New York, 1966.), as contained in the Naked
Capitalist published by W. Cleon Skousen, Salt Lake City, 1970.
2 Cambridge Ancient History; Vol. I; P. 371. On first reading this
unusual expression, there is temptation to think that an error has been
made in the translation of the tablet. However, according to the
correspondent in Zaire for the magazine known as Awake, chiefs of the
natives of this country in pre-Europeanized times announced the copper
mining season with the words Tuye Tukadie, Tuye Tukadie mukuba, which
literally translates as "Let us go eat copper; in effect meaning "Let us
go enrich ourselves to provide for our life." (Awake, p. 25; July 8th,
1974.). Similarly the expression describing the sellers of land as
"eaters of the silver of the field", derives from the same root idea and
implies that they enriched themselves to provide for the essentials of
life by the sale of their land for silver.
3 Sir Charles L. Woolley: Abraham, P. 123.
4 With all due deference to an otherwise most eminent scholar.
5 Very little is known of the former relatively extensive use of glass
as material to record definite numbers of the unit of exchange, or, more
simply put, as money. On this subject François Lenormant commented in
his book: La Monnaie dans l'Antiquité (P. 214; Tome I, Book II): "Nous
possédons des preuves irréfragables da l'usage de monnaie de verre en
Egypte des la temps du Haut-Empire (1) usage que se continua dans le
même pays sous les Byzantins (2) puis sous les Arabes (3). C'est
principalement de temps des Khalifes Fatimite que l'Egypte vit fabriquer
le plu grand nombre de ces assignats le verre, portant l'indication
d'une valeur da monnaie. Les Arabes de Sicile en firent aussi a
l'imitation de ceux d'Egypte"
6 Sir Charles Woolley: Abraham, P. 123; London; 1936.
7 Christopher Dawson: Age of the Gods, P. 130. (London; 1928.).
8 Actually evidence exists of Sumerian culture extending as far as the
Caspian Sea even before the Dynastic Period. Reference to this subject
is to be found on page 47 of The Sumerians.
9 On pages 124-125 of his book Abraham (London, 1936.) comment is made
by Sir Charles Woolley: "a trade which involved the greater part of the
then known world was carried on with remarkable smoothness by means of
what we should call a paper currency based on commodity values... The
fluctuations of currency values which are the bugbear of modern commerce
were virtually overcome by a currency which depended ultimately on the
staple necessity of life but was qualified by the use of a medium
possessed of intrinsic value; the commercial traveller had to use his
wits and exercise his judgement as to the form in which he cashed his
credit notes."
Further comment was made by Sir Charles Woolley and Jacquetta Hawkes in
Prehistory and the Beginnings of Civilization (pp. 615-616; London; 1963
): The difficulty was solved by what might be called Letters of Credit
facilitated by the existence of established agents on the trade routes.
The traveller started with a consignment of grain, might sell it in some
town on his road, receiving a signed tablet with the value expressed in
copper, possibly, or in silver with which he could buy there or
elsewhere something to the same value which he could sell at a profit
farther along on his journey... his tablets payable on demand by the
agents to whom he was accredited were the ancient equivalent of a Paper
currency..."
10 E.J.C. McKay: Further Excavations at Mohenjo-Daro p 582. (Govt.
India. Delhi; 1938.)
11 Sir Charles Woolley: Excavations at Ur; P. 112.
12 In the words of Sir Charles L. Woolley on page 193 of Excavations at
Ur: “ Raw materials were imported sometimes from over the sea, to be
worked up in the Ur factories; the Bill of Lading of a merchant ship
which came up the canal from the Persian Gulf to discharge its cargo on
the wharves of Ur details gold, copper ore, hardwood, ivory, pearls, and
precious stones.”
13 John Bright: A History of Israel, P. 44; London; 1960.
14 Sir Charles Leonard Woolley; The Sumerians, P. 25 New York; 1965.
15 The Goyim of Genesis; Chapter XIV; verse I.
16 A. Andreades: History of the Bank of England, P. 23; London; 1966.
17 The Laws of Hammurabai; No. 7; (G.R. Driver & John C. Miles: Ancient
Codes and Laws of the Near East, Vol. II, P. 15. Oxford, 1952.).
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