Grivna of Novgorod (silver bar)

A bar-shaped silver ingot from the collection of the Novgorod Kremlin Museum. From the 13th to the 15th centuries, these bars were used for large transactions and came to be called 'rubli' in account books. This is the very object from which the name 'ruble' is thought to originate. As it was made by pouring silver into an open mold, wrinkles from the cooling process remain on the upper surface. The etymological theory of a 'seam' refers to these wrinkles.