Photos: A few notes about the history of paper money
First we foraged, then we bartered, then we used coins. Paper money – folded away and mostly forgotten – has
First we foraged, then we bartered, then we used coins. Paper money – folded away and mostly forgotten – has a back story all of its own. Check out the many forms paper money has taken over the centuries.
While coin use in India, Turkey and China goes back 2600 years, the Chinese first figured out in 1024 that it’s much easier to use representative vouchers than lug piles of coins around. The first paper money originated in Sichuan. This printing plate and print are some of the oldest surviving examples. See those coins? They represent the value of the paper money.(Wikimedia Commons)
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Paper money slowly got popular throughout Asia. In Stockholm in 1661, Dutch entrepreneur Johan Palmstruch, who founded the Stockholms Banco in collaboration with the Swedish government, introduced credit notes. They came in set denominations, were watermarked, bore a date of issue, bank seal and eight banker signatures. A hit! But they issued too many and the bank was liquidated.(CurrencyWorld Asia)
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Even in 1694, wars were expensive. The Bank of England was established to help with war efforts against France. But the English learnt from the Swedes to never issue more notes against the Pound Sterling than they could handle. Each note like this one was signed by hand.(CurrencyWorld Asia)
Finally, paper money in India! Bank of Bombay was established in 1720, and issued interest notes. Money-like vouchers were issued by the Bank of Hindostan in 1770, General Bank of Bengal and Bihar (1773), Bengal Bank (1784) and Carnatic Bank (1788). Rangoon, Kanpur, Lahore and Karachi established banks too. The notes circulated conveniently within banking regions.(CurrencyWorld Asia)
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Paper money sparks a revolution: In British colonies in America, a Currency Act in 1764 took control of the monetary system, abolishing local-bank notes for pound-based British money. This note for the time was issued for Pennsylvania. The protests precipitated the US War of Independence in 1776. Americans instituted the US dollar in 1792.(Wikimedia Commons)
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Modus Vivendi (1000 people – 1000 Homes), 2000: In this self-portrait, a work of mixed media on canvas, Kallat appears as a swaggering, bespectacled juggler of heart and brain. The painting is an exploration of selfhood in the city of Mumbai, where he grew up and lives. The individual, lost in the multitudes, wanders in a state of perpetual disorientation, as reflected in the work. The radiating streaks of red, orange and green, reminiscent of thermal imagery, were achieved by texturing the canvas with layers of paint or canvas and then peeling off some parts to attain the desired visual effect.
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Sheer delight: While out surveying the remote Phoenix Islands Archipelago, Schmidt Ocean Institute scientists captured rare footage of a “glass octopus”, named so because it is completely see-through. What one does see when one shines a light on it is its optic nerve, eyeballs, and digestive tract. Even though this species has been known to science since 1918, scientists were forced to study about this animal through specimens found in the guts of predators, before this sighting.
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Herald / Harbinger is a permanent public art installation by Ben Rubin and Jer Thorp. It broadcasts the sounds of the Bow Glacier cracking and breaking 200 km away, to the centre of Calgary, one of Canada’s largest cities, almost in real time. The sounds and imagery shaped by data from a glacial observatory are broadcast through 16 speakers and seven LED arrays.
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Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022): The movie explores the many dimensions of parenthood and love through the story of a Chinese-American immigrant named Evelyn Wang (played by Michelle Yeoh) who, while struggling to run a failing laundromat business, uses her newfound powers to travel across multiple realities to save the world and work on her strained relationships with her loved ones. It’s a family drama that’s fast-paced, funny and, above all, tackles earnestly the idea of healing from intergenerational trauma.
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At first sight: For centuries, sunspots were thought to be Mercury passing across the Sun. By the early 17th century, with the invention of the telescope, astronomers could get a clearer look. In 1610, Galileo Galilei (who first used the telescope to observe space) in Italy and his British contemporary Thomas Harriot identified these as spots on the Sun. Seen here are 35 drawings of sunspots created by Galileo between June 2 and July 8, 1612.
