"We have documented more than 200 relative values of gold and silver across almost 3000 years (2500 bce–400 ce) to establish value benchmarks for essentially pure metal. Our aim is to improve understanding of ancient economies by enabling regional and temporal comparisons of these relative values."
"The following review of the archeological and document evidence indicates that three events occurring in the first half of the first millennium BC trigger the emergence of a specialized and integrated classical economy after 500 BC: (i) growth in demand for silver as a medium of exchange in economies in the Near East; (ii) technical breakthroughs in hull construction and sailing rig in merchant shipping of the late Bronze Age; (iii) perfection of ferrous metallurgy into the European hinterland."
Dramatic wage & price fluctuations influenced the hierarchies of well-being & working conditions in French prison workshops 1900-1940, according to Elsa Genard (Harvard) at the 2023 SSHA conference in Washington DC https://ssha2023.ssha.org/sessions/177