Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/513

Rh 120 gls. Cl.X) 7750

the Hebrew system being

cerah 20 = shekel, 100 = maneh, 30 = talent, l-.&quot;9 Krs. 25S? 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 cast 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 ^Egean coast it often occurs in early coinage (17), at Lampsacus 131-129, Phocrea 256-4, Cyzicus 252-247, Methymna 124 &quot;6, &c. In later times it was a main unit of North Syria, and also on the Euxine, leaden 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, being 129 6 at the earliest (17) (though modified to double Attic, or 133, later) and being-f 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 in division into ^, 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 uncife = 7400) was known as the &quot;Italic&quot; in the days of Galen and Dioscorides (2). -i no A variation on the main system was made by forming a r^nrf 8 m i na f 50 shekels. This is one of the Persian series (gold), and the 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 &quot;0); audit 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 uncife (^), and scripulfe (^-j), 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 125-4-10. 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 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.

o fi From 129 grains of gold was adopted an equal value ^ s ^ vcr= 1720, on the proportion of 1 : 13j, and this was Divided n 10 = 172, which was used either in 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 ; the danak was g of this, or 287. Xcnophon 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 ^Egean coast, in Lydia and in Macedonia (17). The silver bars found at Troy averaging 2744, 01 , j mina of 8232, have been attributed to this unit (17) ; but no division of the mina in ^ is to be expected, and the average i rather low. Two hfematite 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 ; bui in Italy it was divided, like all other units, into uncife and scripuLc (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 uncia? (8400) named by Roman writers. The system was

obol, 6 = siglus, 100 = mina, C0 = talent. 14-3 grs. 80 8COO 516,000

A derivation from this was the ,^ of 172, or 57 3, the so-callei Phocfean drachma, equal in silver value to the fa of the gold 258 grains. It was used at Phocaea as 58 5, and passed to the colonie of Posidonia and Velia as 59 or 118. The colony of Massilia Drouht it into Gaul as 58 2-54 9.|1}} That tnis unit (commonly called Phoenician) is derived S24- doubted, both being 11 I ono^ from tllc 129 s y steni can nart lly Vo nnii so intimately associated in Syria and Asia Minor. /-,uuu. The re i at i on j 3 258 : 229 : : 9 : 8 ; but the exact form in which the descent took place is not settled : ^V of 129 of gold is worth 57 of silver or a drachm, of 230 (or by trade weights 127 and 226) ; otherwise, deriving it from the silver weight of 86 already formed, the drachm is of the stater, 172, or double of the Persian danak of 287, 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 gold was equal to 1150 of silver, 5 shekels, or y 1 ^ mina. Other proposed derivations from the kat or pek are not satisfactory. In actual use this unit varied greatly: at Naucratis (29) there are groups of it at 231, 223, and others down to 208 ; this is the earliest form in which we can study it, and the corre sponding values to these are 130 and 126, or the gold and trade varieties of the Babylonian, while the lower tail down to 208 cor responds to the shekel down to 118, which is just what is found. Hence the 224 unit seems to have been formed from the 129, after the main families or types of that had arisen. It is scarcer at Defenneh (29) and rare at Memphis (44). Under the Ptolemies, however, it became the great unit of Egypt, and is very prominent in the later literature in consequence (18, 35). The average of coins (21) of Ptolemy; I. gives 219 6, and thence they gradually diminish to 210, the average (33) of the whole series of Ptolemies being 218. The &quot;argenteus&quot; (as Revillout transcribes a sign in the papyri) (35) was of 5 shekels, or 1090 ; it arose about 440 B.C., and became after 160 B.C. a weight unit for copper. In Syria, as early as the 15th century B.C., the tribute of the Rutennu, of Naliaraina, Megiddo, Anaukasa, &c. (34), is on a basis of 454-484 kats, or 300 shekels ( T V talent) of 226 grains. The commonest weight at Troy (44) is the shekel, averaging 224. In coinage it is one of the commonest units in early times ; from Phoenicia, round the coast to Macedonia, it is predominant (17) ; at a maximum of 230 (lalysus), it is in Macedonia 224, but seldom exceeds 220 else where, the earliest Lydian of the 7th century being 219, and the general average of coins 218. The system was

(1) 8= drachm, 4= shekel, 25=mina, 120=talent. 7 gvs. 56 224 5COO 672,000

From the Phoenician coinage it was adopted for the Maccabean. It is needless to give the continual evidences of this being the later Jewish shekel, both from coins (max. 223) and writers (2, 18, 33) ; the question of the early shekel we have noticed already under 129. In Phoenicia and Asia Minor the mina was specially made in the form with two breasts (44), 19 such weights averaging 5600 (= 224) ; and thence it passed into Greece, more in a double value of 11,200 (= 224). From Phoenicia this naturally became the main Punic unit ; a bronze weight from lol (18), marked 100, gives a drachma of 56 or 57 (224-228) ; and a Punic inscription (18) names 28 drachma; = 25 Attic, and. . 57 to 59 grains (228-236); while a prob ably later series of 8 marble disks from Carthage (44) show 208, but vary from 197 to 234. In Spain it was 236 to 216 in different series (17), and it is a question whether the Massiliote drachmae of 58-55 are not Phoenician rather than Phocaic. In Italy this mina became naturalized, and formed the &quot;Italic mina&quot; of Hero, Priscian, &c. ; also its double, the mina of 26 uncife or 10,800, =50 shekels of 216; the average of 42 weights gives 5390 (= 215 6), and it was divided both into 100 drachma;, and also in the Italic mode of 12 uncife and 288 scripulse (44). The talent was of 120 minre of 5400, or 3000 shekels, shown by the talent from Hercu- laneum, TA, 660,000 and by the weight inscribed PONDO cxxv. (i.e., 125 librne) TALKNTUM SICLOUVM. iii., i.e., talent of 3000 shekels (2) (the M being omitted ; just as Epiphanius describes this talent as 125 libra;, or 6 ( = 9) nomismata, for 9000). This gives the same approximate ratio 96 : 100 to the libra as the usual drachma reckon ing. The Alexandrian talent of Festus, 12,000 denarii, is the same talent again. It is. believed that this mina-f-12 uncife by the Romans is the origin of the Arabic ratl of 12 iikiyas, or 5500 grains (33), which is said to have been sent by Harun al-Rashid to Charlemagne, and so to have originated the French monetary pound of 5666 grains. But, as this is probably the same as the English monetary pound, or tower pound of 5400, which was in use earlier (see Saxon coins), it seems more likely that this pqund (which is common in Roman weights) was directly inherited from the Roman civilization.

f.f) Another unit, which has scarcely been recognized in aTon&quot;- 8 metrology hitherto, is prominent in the weights from 400 000 ^&quot; v r )t &amp;gt; some ^ we S nts f rom Naucratis and 15 from Defenneh plainly agreeing on this and on no other basis. Its value varies between 76 5 and 81 5, mean 79 at Naucratis (29) or 81 at Defenneh (29). It has been connected theoretically with a binary division of the 10 shekels or &quot;stone &quot; of the Assyrian systems (28), 1290 -f 16 being 80 6 ; this is suggested by the most usual mul tiples being 40 and 80 = 25 and 50 shekels of 129; it is thus akin to the mina of 50 shekels previously noticed. The tribute of the Asi,