[1][2][3] Following the unification of the city-states in Assyria and Sumer by Sargon of Akkad into a single empire ruled from his home city circa 2334 BC, common Mesopotamian standards for length, area, volume, weight, and time used by artisan guilds in each city was promulgated by Naram-Sin of Akkad (c. 2254–2218 BC), Sargon's grandson, including for shekels.
[4] In December 1901 and January 1902, at the direction of archaeologist Jacques de Morgan, Father Jean-Vincent Scheil, OP found a 2.25 meter (or 88.5 inch) tall basalt or diorite stele in three pieces inscribed with 4,130 lines of cuneiform law dictated by Hammurabi (c. 1792–1750 BC) of the First Babylonian Empire in the city of Shush, Iran.
[5][6][7] Code of Hammurabi Law 100 stipulated repayment of a loan by a debtor to a creditor on a schedule with a maturity date specified in written contractual terms.
[11][12][10] Ancient Greek bankers were known as τραπεζίται (trapezitai), singular trapezites, a term which arose from their use of τράπεζαι (trapezai), a type of table.
[13][14][15][16][17] At the earliest recorded time, trapezitai are known to have participated as private enterprise, who in the first instance were greatly reliant on business generated by money-changing activity, but also accepted deposits and made and took payments from individuals.
[15] Ancient Grecian bankers were in the first case moneychangers (kollybistes[18]) and pawnbrokers, who were present in the marketplace or festival sites, changing the coinage of foreign merchants into local currency.
[1][20][21] The task of keeping the deposited wealth provided to the temple of Asklepios were allotted often to the neokoros or zakoros; or at Kos the hierophylakes, who were also the record keepers of such exchanges.