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→Evolution of Gold
During the 1st millennium BC, by around the 6th century BC in the Near East and eastern Mediterranean Hellenistic states, we begin to see coins now utilized with gold.<ref>For more on the evolution of early coins and gold coins, see: Leslie Kurke. 1999. Coins, Bodies, Games and Gold. The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece. Princeton: Princeton University Press.</ref> In fact, it is one of the first metals to be fashioned into coins, suggesting gold coins and coins i general were first intended for high value exchange. While this largely reflects gold’s role as an object utilized for trade and exchange, it now also shows royal authority was beginning to stamp gold with iconography as a way to show government-level backing. This derives from the concept of gold and royalty we had seen in the third millennium BC graves and other royal or high elite status. In effect, coinage and gold become established as the privy of the state <ref>For a history and presentation of types of ancient gold coins, see Friedberg, Arthur L., Ira S. Friedberg, and Robert Friedberg. 2003. Gold Coins of the World: From Ancient Times to the Present: An Illustrated Standard Catalogue with Valuations. 7th ed. Clifton, N.J: Coin and Currency Institute.</ref>
Eventually, as gold coins continue to be utilized, this then helps establish the concept use of currency gold and how much gold in coins becomes standardized value more substantially. The concept accelerates in the late 1st millennium BC across the Mediterranean world, where gold became associated with is always the top-level currency and utilized for high value exchangescan only be minted by the governments controlling a given region. This concept of gold currency continues into the Medieval world, in particular for Europe after the reemergence of states.<ref>For example of gold and how it was retained used for currency in the Medieval World, see: Allen, Martin. 2012. Mints and Money in Medieval England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. </ref>. Arguably, one of the chief motivations for the Spanish conquests in the New World was gold and much of that became refashioned into gold-level currency used by the governing bodies and banks of Spain after their conquest. This helped launch Spain and other European powers eventually into a global race not only for power but one can argue a race to accrue as much gold as possible, as it symbolized the new power of Europe. What the example shows is that gold had, very early, established itself as a metal distinct from all other metals. It quickly became a prestige good that changed media, such as in coinage, but the prestige continued irrespective of the media and into the modern era.
==Conclusion==
