page_title: Treasury
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Treasury / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The Treasury of the Athenians at the Sanctuary of Delphi, Greece. Like many other cities, Athens built a treasury along the sacred path that winds its way up toward the Temple of Apollo, home of the famous Delphic Oracle. The treasury would have housed the many lavish gifts devoted to Apollo by the city in return for the god's oracular advice. The present treasury is partly reconstructed, and the white pieces (including most of the left-hand column) are not original.
context_page_description: A Treasury is either:
  Originally, a place where money, gold and other treasure is kept.
  Today, a government department which deals with money supply, taxation and financial policy.
context_section_description: The treasury as a place to keep the king's (or city's) gold and valuables has a long history. The winners in a war would take back whatever they wanted, and slaves and booty were top of the list. The first recorded booty in history is a stele taken during 1160 BC.
  The earliest found artefacts made of silver and gold are from Lake Varna in Bulgaria dated 4250–4000 BC, the earliest made of copper are dated 9000–7000 BC.
  "...And there was also silver weighing many thousands of talents and all the royal treasure amounting to a very great sum..." Procopius of Caesarea.
  The term treasury was first used in classical antiquity to describe the places built for gifts to the gods. An example is the Siphnian Treasury in Delphi. Many similar buildings were put up in Olympia, Greece by city-states hoping to impress others during the ancient Olympic Games. In Ancient Greece treasuries were almost always inside religious buildings such as temples. This made state funds sacrosanct, and adding moral constraints to the punishment for thieves.
  The sovereigns' treasury in the palace in ancient Jerusalem,was similar in nature to the temple treasury. Those treasuries had officials, and worked rather like a bank.
  "...in fact, practically in every city there are banking places for the holy money..." Philo.
  In excavations of Persopolis a text about to the activities of a treasury were discovered. It dates to the fifth century BC. The texts were written in the Elamite language.
  The ancient Roman word aerarium signified the treasury of the Senate, fiscus was used to indicate the imperial treasury used by Caesar. They had, as we do, the distinction between a treasury as a store of valuables, and the treasury as an office of finance.
caption: The treasury of Athens at Delphi, built with the spoils of the Battle of Marathon
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A75", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2005:03:17 04:05:32", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2548", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6189", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1000", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:03:17 04:05:32", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:03:17 04:05:32", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "319/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "173/32", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1536", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2048", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "1536", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2048", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1872", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "128000/13", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "128000/13", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}