“Money plays the largest part in determining the course of history.” Karl Marx

Cocoa beans, stones, horses, bat-teeth, feathers, whalebones, shells, deerskin, earthen-pots, kettles, bows, armor, fish-hooks, corn, salt, rice, coconuts, glass-vases, silver, gold, coins, paper, plastic, blips on an electronic screen- money has 'many histories.' Its chronicles range from being a specific, tangible commodity to a nebulous, intangible abstraction. But its role in every form of witnessing and documenting the history of humans, their interactions, beliefs, social structures, culture and of course, their finances must be applauded. Perhaps no other phenomenon has been the focus of such constant and zealous attention, provoking numerous moral, ethical, religious debates while also being the cause of so much conflict and competition between persons, civilizations, kingdoms and nations; thereby altering, eradicating and re-creating the course of human history.

This research traces the illustrious journey of money in four eras. The first, from prehistoric barter to primitive commodity money, followed by the discovery and use of metals and early minting of coins; the third; the widespread and far-reaching imperial, elitist coinage upto a combination of paper currency and coins via banal nationalism and finally e-money as stimuli on electronic screens across the world. The newest entrant in money's archives; the epoch-making Euro was launched differently;  initially electronically in 1999 and thereafter, in 2002 as banknotes and coins; whose designs were placed with the responsibility of contributing to a new 'Euroland'- from Northern Scandinavia to Southern Greece and from the Western Iberian Peninsula to the Eastern Balkans. The Euro has literally made geography, history!

This paper recognizes money's metamorphosis from cocoa to credit; by commending its passageway of documenting and shaping human history throughout the ages and by acknowledging that money is not merely a medium of exchange but a medium of communication.