Where did Medieval Europe's gold come from?

In the Greek and Roman Era there were a number of sources in Europe tapped for gold..

These were often alluvial (alluvium is loose soil or sediment, usually around water) deposits near the mouths of rivers in Lydia, Greece, Egypt, and Asia Minor. Later more standard mines were found in the Balkans. Rome found similar river deposits in North Italy, Spain, and the Rhine and England. Later they found mines in Spain, and Dacia in the Balkans. These deposits were mostly mined out, or are too small for the current voracious need for Gold.

Gold in the Ancient World

Electrum coins were outlawed by King Croesus (560-546 B.C.) and gold or silver coins were issued. Pure metal coins were necessary to encourage trade relations with Greece, where electrum was not found native in the alluvial deposits. The Greeks would not accept electrum coins in trade. The early source of the gold for coinage was gold mined from the alluvial deposits in Lydia and Greece. Thasos was a rich land south of Thrace that had prolific gold mines and a controlling interest in mainland silver mines during the sixth century B.C. In Greece, the right to issue coins was reserved for political authorities and heads of state.

In 546 B.C. the Persians overran Lydia and adopted the use of coinage without changing the Lydian style or technology. However, they did bring a wealth of gold taken from Egypt. At their peak, they looted 40,000 pounds of gold a year from Egypt. This was mostly Ethiopian gold now melted into the Asian melting pot. The Persians also had their own gold supply. The Arabian shore of the Red Sea offered alluvial deposits so rich that the Greek historian Diodurus wrote that the alluvial mud positively glittered. Gold mines used to provide new gold to early mints were in operation at Phoenicia, Syria, Phrygia and Lampsacus. The river Oxus, known today as Amu Darya, which emptied into the Caspian Sea, was legendary to the Greeks for its alluvial gold. Meanwhile, Lampsacus, at the Dardanelles, issued electrum coinage in the fifth century B.C. and changed to gold in the fourth century B.C. to encourage trade with the Greeks.

A primary Greek deposit of alluvial gold was the river Pactolus which drained the Anatolian Highlands. Today the exact location of the river is uncertain and the gold strata are no longer being eroded. It was the gold from these sources that King Croesus used to issue the first true coinage backed by his crown. Because Greece as a whole had inadequate gold resources to support an extensive gold coinage, silver, for the first time, became the medium of exchange and the gold to silver ratio was set at 1:13. A noted exception to the silver coinage was the issue by Athens of gold coins from 407 to 404 B.C. to pay for the Peloponnesian War.

Philip I of Macedonia issued a prolific gold coinage after the conquest of northern Greece in 348 B.C. Philip II provided the Greeks with their first practical gold coinage from the gold mines at Thrace, Macedonia. So much gold became available that the ratio of gold to silver changed to 1:10. . Inflation had been introduced into civilization. Modern hindsight might well call this the fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse (after Death, War, Famine, and Pestilence). Alexander the Great increased the gold coin supply from bullion taken from the Persian treasuries. Gold was again being recycled and not all coinage was produced from gold mined for coinage.

ROMAN GOLD COINAGE

The growth of Rome began at a time when the world supply of gold was mounting to a very great volume and was widely disseminated. Like Greece, the Romans began their rise to power with very little gold in their natural resources.

The first Roman gold came from the river Po in the western Alps and from southern Piedmont. Rome was slow to acquire vast amounts of gold and even forbade burial of gold with the deceased after 450 B.C. The Second Punic War gave Rome the prize that changed its gold position. The acquisition of Spain brought stupendous amounts of gold to Rome. Gold came from the mines and alluvial deposits in the Aduar Basin, the Malaga district, the Plains of Granada and the slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Gold is still found in these places today. Rome also got, from the treasuries of Syracuse, 2700 pounds of gold.

Roman conquest brought gold to the Imperial treasury from the far reaches of the Empire. Gold was recycled to produce many of the gold coins issued during the time of the Roman Empire. Roman Imperial gold coins circulated far beyond the frontiers on a vast scale, making it the first world coinage. The coins most circulated were those of Augustus. The gold for these coins was mined, and the coins minted, on a large scale, at Lugdunum in Gaul and at Calagurris in northern Spain. There has been prolific gold mining at these sites since antiquity. Caesar provided another source of gold with the conquest of Britain. The geographer Strabo wrote that gold was one of the commodities exported to Rome after Caesar’s triumph in Britain. The Romans extracted gold from mines at Wales, Devon and Cornwall.

The price of mining gold took a leap when the Romans developed hydraulic mining in the Spanish mines. Rivers were re-channeled and destroyed. Strabo wrote that this method produced more gold than the deep mines. Some of the Roman mines in Spain were 650 feet deep. Slaves in the mines never saw the light of day. The mines were worked until they collapsed on their inhabitants.

Roman Egypt issued the first coinage in that ancient land. The first systematic mining and use of gold occurred in the Nile Valley, yet the Pharaohs did not issue a coinage apart from a very few and minor issues. After the death of Alexander the Great the Ptolemies became the ruling class in the land of the Pharaohs. They promptly issued a prolific coinage of heavy gold coins.

As the influence of Rome expanded to include most of the known world, their sources of gold and their hunger for it expanded as well. Gold was taken from the Rhine River, from mines at Vercellae and from Transylvania. It was brought in trade from the Atlantic coast of central Africa, and from the sources of the Egyptians. Gold from all over the world flowed into Rome. The wealth of gold reached a point where massive statues of pure gold were displayed. The wife of Emperor Claudius, Agrippina, in A.D. 49, wore a tunic of plaited gold thread. She poisoned her husband five years later so that her son, Nero, could become emperor. Then Nero had her murdered five years later.

All this Roman gold was scattered over Europe and Asia when the barbarian invaders sacked Rome. This sacking ended the systematic accumulation of gold on a large scale in Europe until after the Dark Ages.