Based on ethnohistorical, archaeological, chemical. This study reconsiders axe-monies in relation to their production and as a representative example of the maritime trade that disseminated metallurgical. They statistically compared the weights using a method based in psychophysics - a field in psychology that quantifies how we perceive weight and other factors with our senses. 1) Axe-monies refer to bronze artifacts found in both western Mesoamerica and the northern Andes. Kuijpers and Popa collected the weights of 2,639 rings, 1,780 ribs and 609 axe blades.

In other words, the precise weight of an object was unimportant as long as it was 'perceptibly identical,' the scientists reported.

But since civilizations at the time predated sophisticated weighing systems, people likely estimated an object's weight based on how heavy (or how light) it felt in their hands. Axe-monies and their relatives Item Preview remove-circle Share or Embed This Item. By comparison, the Bronze Age rings, ribs and axes reviewed for the study were less uniform. Levine, PhD Researchers are taking a closer look at a group of 48 nearly identical axe-monies in the Museums. In modern money, denominations of coins and paper currency are mass-manufactured so as to be near-identical. Bronze rings may have first served as adornment before they came to be used as currency.

Axe monies