It is almost certain that in all countries at one stage silver must have been of higher value than gold; afterwards as its production became greater, it became equal in value, and finally, little by little, much less valuable, until at last the relation between the metals is 1:22. Of course we must add that there must have been always certain fluctuations, according as a sudden increase of output of one or other of the metals altered temporarily their relations. We have evidence that silver in early times in Egypt was held in higher esteem than gold. Thus Erman33 says that according to ancient Egyptian notions silver was the most costly of the precious metals; for they always in an enumeration mention it before gold, and in the tombs ornaments of silver are of far rarer occurrence than those of gold. This circumstance is simply and sufficiently explained (thinks Erman) by the fact that Egypt herself possesses no deposits of silver, but must have obtained the metal from Cilicia. Under the 18th dynasty (1400 B.C.), the Phoenicians supplied Egypt with silver and under the new empire the supply had so increased that it was now evidently cheaper than gold, for the later texts always name silver after gold, just as we do. We have previously noticed the paucity of silver articles in the tombs at Mycenae which are commonly dated 1400 B.C.
It is therefore reasonable to suppose that towards the end of the Second Millennium B.C. gold and silver were almost of equal value, not alone in Egypt, but in other parts likewise of the ancient world. The great supply of silver had not yet been obtained which in the 10th century B.C. made silver at Jerusalem like stones. “As for silver,” says the sacred writer, “it was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon” (900 B.C.)34, who had “made silver and gold at Jerusalem as plenteous as stones35.” By this time silver had become very cheap in Egypt likewise. At least if we can at all rely on the author of the books of Chronicles. For the king’s merchants “fetched up and brought forth out of Egypt a chariot for six hundred shekels of silver, and an horse for one hundred and fifty: and so brought they out horses for all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria36.”