but must yield more and more to the increasing evidence of actual weights and measures. Besides this, all their evidence is but approximate, often only stating quantities to a half or quarter of the amount, and seldom nearer than 5 or 10%; hence they are entirely worthless for all the closer questions of the approximation or original identity of standards in different countries; and it is just in this line that the imagination of writers has led them into the greatest speculations, unchecked by accurate evidence of the original standards. (2) Weights and measures actually remaining. These are the prime sources, and as they increase and are more fully studied, so the subject will be cleared and obtain a fixed basis. A difficulty has been in the paucity of examples, more due to the neglect of collectors than the rarity of specimens. The number of published weights did not exceed 600 of all standards in 1880; but the collections from Naucratis (28),[1] Defcnneh (29) and Memphis (44) have supplied over six times this quantity, and of an earlier age than most other examples, while existing collections have been more thoroughly examined. It is above all desirable to make allowances for the changes which weights have undergone; and, as this has only been done for the above Egyptian collections and that of the British Museum, conclusions as to the accurate values of different standards will here be drawn from these rather than continental sources. (3) Objects which have been made by measure or weight, and from which the unit of construction can be deduced. Buildings will generally yield up their builder's foot or cubit when examined (Inductive Metrology, p. 9). Vases may also be found bearing such relations to one another as to show their unit of volume. And coins have long been recognized as one of the great sources of metrology—valuable for their wide and detailed range of information, though most unsatisfactory on account of the constant temptation to diminish their weight, a weakness which seldom allows us to reckon them as of the full standard. Another defect in the evidence of coins is that, when one variety of the unit of weight was once fixed on for the coinage, there was (barring the depreciation) no departure from it, because of the need of a fixed value, and hence coins do not show the range and character of the real variations of units as do buildings, or vases, or the actual commercial weights.
Principle of Stury.—I. Limits of Variation in Different Copies, Places and Times.—Unfortunately, so very little is known of the ages of weights and measures that this datum—most essential in considering their history—has been scarcely considered. In measure, Egyptians of Dynasty IV. at Gizeh on an average varied 1 in 350 between different buildings (27). Buildings at Persepolis, all of nearly the same age, vary in unit 1 in 450 (25). Including a greater range of time and place, the Roman foot in Italy varied during two or three centuries on an average 1400 from the mean. Covering a longer time, we find an average variation of 1200 in the Attic foot (25), 1150 in the English foot (25), 1170 in the English itinerary foot (25). Se we may say that an average variation of 1400 by toleration, extending to double that by change of place and time is usual in ancient measures. In weights of the same place and age there is a far wider range; at Defenneh (29), within a century probably, the average variation of different units is 136, 160, and 167, the range being just the same as in all times and places taken together. Even in a set of weights all found together, the average variation is only reduced to 160, in place of 136 (29). Taking a wider range of place and time, the Roman libra has an average variation of 5V in the examples of better period (43), and in those of Byzantine age 136 (44). Altogether, we see that weights have descended from original varieties with so little inter comparison that no rectification of their values has been made, and hence there is as much variety in any one place and time as in all together. Average variation may be said to range from 140 to 170 in different units, doubtless greatly due to defective balances.
2. Rate of Variation.—Though large differences may exist, the rate of general variation is but slow—excluding, of course, all monetary standards.
In Egypt the cubit lengthened 1170 in some thousands of years (25, 44) The Italian mile has lengthened 1100 since Roman times (2); the English mile lengthened about 1300 in four centuries (31). The English foot has not appreciably varied in several centuries (25). Of weights there are scarce any dated, excepting coins, which nearly all decrease; the Attic tetradrachm, however, increased 150 in three centuries (28), owing probably to its being below the average trade weight to begin with. Roughly dividing the Roman weights, there appears a decrease of 140 from imperial to Byzantine times (43).
3. Tendency of Variation.—This is, in the above cases of lengths, to an increase in course of time. The Roman foot is also probably 1300 larger than the earlier form of it, and the later form in Britain and Africa perhaps another 1300 larger (25). Probably measures tend to increase and weights to decrease in transmission from time to time or place to place.
4. Details of Variation.—Having noticed variation in the gross, we must next observe its details. The only way of examining these is by drawing curves (28, 29), representing the frequency of occurrence of all the variations of a unit; for instance, in the Egyptian unit—the kat—counting in a large number how many occur between 140 and 141 grains, 141 and 142, and so on; such numbers represented by curves show at once where any particular varieties of the unit he (see Naukratis, i. 83). This method is only applicable where there is a large number of examples; but there is no other way of studying the details. The results from such a study—of the Egyptian kat, for example—show that there are several distinct families or types of a unit, which originated in early times, have been perpetuated by copying, and reappear alike in each locality (see Tanis, ii. pi. 1 .) . Hence we see that if one unit is derived from another it may be possible, by the similarity or difference of the forms of the curves, to discern whether it was derived by general consent and recognition from a standard in the same condition of distribution as that in which we know it, or whether it was derived from it in earlier times before it became so varied, or by some one action forming it from an individual example of the other standard without any variation being transmitted. As our knowledge of the age and locality of weights increases these criteria in curves will prove of greater value; but even now no consideration of the connexion of different units should be made without a graphic representation to compare their relative extent and nature of variation.
5. Transfer of Units.—The transfer of units from one people to another takes place almost always by trade. Hence the value of such evidence in pointing out the ancient course of trade and commercial connexions (17). The great spread of the Phoenician weight on the Mediterranean, of the Persian in Asia Minor and of the Assyrian in Egypt are evident cases; and that the decimal weights of the laws of Manu (43) are decidedly not Assyrian or Persian, but on exactly the Phoenician standard, is a curious evidence of trade by water and not overland. If, as seems probable, units of length may be traced in prehistoric remains, they are of great value; at Stonehenge, for instance, the earlier parts are laid out by the Phoenician foot, and the later by the Pelasgo-Roman foot (26). The earlier foot is continually to be traced in other megalithic remains, whereas the later very seldom occurs (25). This bears strongly on the Phoenician origin of our prehistoric civilization. Again, the Belgic foot of the Tungri is the basis of the present English land measures, which we thus see are neither Roman nor British in origin, but Belgic. Generally a unit is transferred from a higher to a less civilized people; but the near resemblance of measures in different countries should always be corroborated by historical considerations of a probable connexion by commerce or origin (Head, Historia Numorum, xxxvii.). It should be borne in mind that in early times the larger values, such as minae, would be transmitted by commerce, while after the introduction of coinage the lesser values of shekels and drachmae would be the units; and this needs notice, because usually a borrowed unit was multiplied or divided according to the ideas of the borrowers, and strange modifications thus arose.
- ↑ These figures refer to the authorities at the end of this section.
