scarcely found except in the eastern Delta, where it is common
(29); and it is known from a papyrus (38) to be a Syrian weight.
The uten is found ÷6 to be 245, in Upper Egypt (rare) (44). Another
division (in a papyrus) (38) is a silver weight of 610 kat＝about 88—perhaps
the Babylonian siglus of 86. The uten was also binarily
divided into 128 peks of gold in Ethiopia; this may refer to another
standard (see 129) (33). The Ptolemaic copper coinage is on two
bases—the uten, binarily divided, and the Ptolemaic five shekels
(1050), also binarily divided. (This result is from a larger number
than other students have used, and study by diagrams.) The theory
(3) of the derivation of the uten from 11500 cubic cubit of water
would fix it at 1472, which is accordant; but there seems no authority
either in volumes or weights for taking 1500 utens. Another theory
(3) derives the uten from 11000 of the cubic cubit of 24 digits, or better
of 6/7 of 20·63; that, however, will only fit the very lowest variety of the
uten, while there is no evidence of the existence of such a cubit.
The kat is not unusual in Syria (44), and among the haematite
weights of Troy (44) are nine examples, average 144, but not of extreme
varieties.
129 grs.; 258 grs. 7750; 15,500; 465,000.The great standard of Babylonia became the parent of several other systems; and itself and its derivatives became more widely spread than any other standard. It was known in two forms—one system (24) of—
| um, | 60＝sikhir, | 6＝shekel, | 10＝stone, | 6＝maneh, | 60＝talent; |
| ·36 grs. | 21·5 | 129 | 1290 | 7750 | 465,000 |
and the other system double of this in each stage except the talent. These two systems are distinctly named on the weights, and are known now as the light and heavy Assyrian systems (19, 24). (It is better to avoid the name Babylonian, as it has other meanings also.) There are no weights dated before the Assyrian bronze lion weights (9, 17, 19, 38) of the 11th to 8th centuries B.C. Thirteen of this class average 127·2 for the shekel; 9 haematite barrel-shaped weights (38) give 128·2; 16 stone duck-weights (38), 126·5. A heavier value is shown by the precious metals—the gold plates from Khorsabad (18) giving 129, and the gold daric coinage (21, 35) of Persia 129·2. Nine weights from Syria (44) average 128·8. This is the system of the “Babylonian” talent, by Herodotus＝70 minae Euboic, by Pollux＝70 minae Attic, by Aelian＝72 minae Attic, and therefore, about 470,000 grains. In Egypt this is found largely at Naucratis (28, 29), and less commonly at Defenneh (29) In both places the distribution, a high type of 129 and a lower of 127 is like the monetary and trade varieties above noticed; while a smaller number of examples are found, fewer and fewer, down to 118 grains. At Memphis (44) the shekel is scarcely known, and a 12 mina weight was there converted into another standard (of 200). A few barrel weights are found at Karnak, and several egg-shaped shekel weights at Gebelen (44); also two cuboid weights from there (44) of 1 and 10 utens are marked as 6 and 60, which can hardly refer to any unit but the heavy shekel giving 245. Hultsch refers to Egyptian gold rings of Dynasty XVIII. of 125 grains. That this unit penetrated far to the south in early times is shown by the tribute of Kush (34) in Dynasty XVIII.; this is of 801, 1443 and 23,741 kats, or 15 and 27 manehs and 712 talents when reduced to this system. And the later Ethiopic gold unit of the pek (7), or 1128 of the uten, was 10·8 or more, and may therefore be the 12 sikhir or obolos of 21·5. But the fraction 1128, or a continued binary division repeated seven times, is such a likely mode of rude subdivision that little stress can be laid on this. In later times in Egypt a class of large glass scarabs for funerary purposes seem to be adjusted to the shekel (30). Whether this system or the Phoenician of 224 grains was that of the Hebrews is uncertain. There is no doubt but that in the Maccabean times and onward 218 was the shekel; but the use of the word darkemon by Ezra and Nehemiah, and the probabilities of their case, point to the daragmaneh 160 maneh or shekel of Assyria; and the mention of 13 shekel by Nehemiah as poll tax nearly proves that the 129 and not 218 grains is intended, as 218 is not divisible by 3. But the Maccabean use of 218 may have been a reversion to the older shekel; and this is strongly shown by the fraction 14 shekel (1 Sam. ix. 8), the continual mention of large decimal numbers of shekels in the earlier books and the certain fact of 100 shekels being＝mina. This would all be against the 129 or 258 shekel, and for the 218 or 224. There is however, one good datum if it can be trusted. 300 talents of silver (2 Kings xviii. 14) are 800 talents on Sennacherib’s cylinder (34) while the 30 talents of gold is the same in both accounts. Eight hundred talents on the Assyrian silver standard would be 267—or roundly 300—talents on the heavy trade or gold system, which is therefore probably the Hebrew. Probably the 129 and 224 systems coexisted in the country; but on the whole it seems more likely that 129 or rather 258 grains was the Hebrew shekel before the Ptolemaic times—especially as the 100 shekels to the mina is paralleled by the following Persian system (Hultsch)—
| shekel, | 50＝mina. . . . | 60＝talent of gold | |
| 60＝. . . . . mina | . . . . . . . . . . . . | 60＝talent of trade, | |
| 129 grs. | 6450 7750 | 387,000 | 465,000 |
the Hebrew system being
| gerah, | 20-shekel, | 100＝maneh, | 30＝talent, |
| 12·9 grs. | 258? | 25,800 | 774,000 |
and, considering that the two Hebrew cubits are the Babylonian and Persian units, and the volumes are also Babylonian, it is the more likely that the weights should have come with these. From the east this unit passed to Asia Minor: and six multiples of 2 to 20 shekels (av. 127) are found among the haematite weights of Troy (44), including the oldest of them. On the Aegean coast it often occurs in early coinage (17)—at Lampsacus 131–129, Phocaea 256–254, Cyzicus 252–247, Methymna 124·6, &c. In later times it was a main unit of North Syria, and also on the Euxine, leaded weights of Antioch (3), Callatia and Tomis being known (38). The mean of these eastern weights is 7700 for the mina, or 128. But the leaden weights of the west (44) from Corfu, &c., average 7580, or 126·3, this standard was kept up at Cyzicus in trade long after it was lost in coinage. At Corinth the unit was evidently the Assyrian and not the Attic, or 133, later) and being ÷3, and not into 2 drachms. And this agrees with the mina being repeatedly found at Corcyra, and with the same standard passing to the Italian coinage (17) similar in weight and division into 13—the heaviest coinages (17) down to 400 B.C. (Terina Velia, Sybaris, Posidonia, Metapontum, Tarentum, &c.) being none over 126 while later on many were adjusted to the Attic and rose to 134. Six disk weights from Carthage (44) show 126. It is usually the case that a unit lasts later in trade than in coinage: and the prominence of this standard in Italy may show how it is that this mina (18 unciae＝7400) was known as the “Italic” in the days of Galen and Dioscorides.
126 grs.
6300.
A variation on the main system was made by forming a
mina of 50 shekels. This is one of the Persian series (gold)
and the 14 of the Hebrew series noted above. But it is
most striking when it is found in the mina form which distinguishes
it. Eleven weights from Syria and Cnidus (44) (of the curious
type with two breasts on a rectangular block) show a mina of 6250
(125·0); and it is singular that this class is exactly like weights
of the 224 system found with it but yet quite distinct in standard.
The same passed into Italy and Corfu (44), averaging 6000—divided
in Italy into unciae (112), and scripulae (1288) and called litra (in
Corfu?). It is known in the coinage of Hatria (18) as 6320. And
a strange division of the shekel in 10 (probably therefore connected
with this decimal mina) is shown by a series of bronze weights (44)
with four curved sides and marked with circles (British Museum
place unknown), which may be Romano-Gallic, averaging 125÷10
This whole class seems to cling to sites of Phoenician trade. and to
keep clear of Greece and the north—perhaps a Phoenician form of the
129 system, avoiding the sexagesimal multiples.
If this unit have any connexion with the kat, it is that a kat of gold is worth 15 shekels or 14 mina of silver; this agrees well with the range of both units, only it must be remembered that 129 was used as gold unit, and another silver unit deduced from it. More likely then the 147 and 129 units originated independently in Egypt and Babylonia.
86 grs.
8600;
516,000.
From 129 grains of gold was adopted an equal value
of silver＝1720, on the proportion of 1: 1313 and this
was divided in 10＝172—which was used either in
this form, or its half, 86, best known as the siglus (17)
Such a proportion is indicated in Num. vii., where the gold spoon of
10 shekels is equal in value to the bowl of 130 shekels, or double that of
70, i.e. the silver vessels were 200 and 100 sigli. The silver plates at
Khorsabad (18) we find to be 80 sigli of 84·6. The Persian silver
coinage shows about 86·0; the danak was 13 of this or 28·7, Xenophon
and others state it at about 84. As a monetary weight it seems
to have spread, perhaps entirely, in consequence of the Persian
dominion; It varies from 174· downwards, usually 167, in Aradus,
Cilicia and on to the Aegean coast, in Lydia and in Macedonia (17).
The silver bars found at Troy averaging 2744. or 13 mina of 8232, have
been attributed to this unit (17); but no division of the mina in 13 is
to be expected, and the average is rather low. Two haematite weights
from Troy (44) show 86 and 87·2. The mean from leaden weights
of Chios, Tenedos (44), &c., is 8430. A duck-weight of Camirus
probably early, gives 8480; the same passed on to Greece and Italy
(17), averaging 8610; but in Italy it was divided, like all other units
into unciae and scripulae (44). It is perhaps found in Etrurian coinage
as 175–172 (17). By the Romans it was used on the Danube (18)
two weights of the first legion there showing 8610; and this is the
mina of 20 unciae (8400) named by Roman writers. The system
was—
| obol, | 6＝siglus, | 100＝mina, | 60＝talent. |
| 14·3 grs. | 86 | 8600 | 516,000 |
A derivation from this was the 13 of 172, or 57·3, the so-called Phocaean drachma, equal in silver value to the 160 of the gold 258 grains. It was used at Phocaea as 58·5, and parsed to the colonies of Posidonia and Velia as 59 or 118. The colony of Massilia brought It into Gaul as 58·2–54·9.
224 grs.
11,200;
672,000.
That this unit (commonly called Phoenician) is derived
from the 129 system can hardly be doubted, both being
so intimately associated in Syria and Asia Minor. The
relation is 258 : 229 :: 9:8; but the exact form in which
the descent took place is not settled: 160 or 129 of gold is worth
57 of silver or a drachm, 14 of 230 (or by trade weights 127 and 226);
otherwise, deriving it from the silver weight of 86 already formed
the drachm is 13 of the stater, 172, or double of the Persian danak of
28·7, and the sacred unit of Didyma in Ionia was this half-drachm.
27; or thirdly, what is indicated by the Lydian coinage (17), 86 of
