Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/145

 of such rings. Brandis, who was the first to seek for the unit on which these rings were fashioned, thought that they followed the heavy shekel (260 grs.), the double of our common unit. On the other hand F. Lenormant thinks that they are really based on the light shekel, or rather on a lighter variety of the light shekel, of about 127 grains, and he is followed in this by Hultsch. For our purpose it matters not whether the rings were made on the simple unit or its double, for there are not really two separate standards but simply one and the same. It is hardly likely that the Pharaohs would have done otherwise than the kings of Persia at a later time, who made their subject countries pay their tribute in the recognized currency of the kingdom, the gold being reckoned (as Herodotus says) by the Euboic talent, the silver by the Babylonian talent. There can then be but little doubt that these gold rings give us either actually the old Egyptian standard, or a standard so closely related to it that there was to all intents and purposes no material distinction between them.

Schliemann noticed a resemblance between some of the rings found at Mycenae and those represented in Egyptian paintings. It is not preposterous to suppose that the rings of Mycenae represent a kind of ring both in form and weight which was employed by the peoples of Asia Minor and Egypt, as well as in Greece. The contact between Egypt and Asia Minor is so close, communication so free, that it would be in itself most unlikely that any wide divergence of currency would exist in earlier times, whilst on the other hand her relations with the people of Ethiopia and Libya were likewise so close that they forbid any other conclusion. This is proved by the statement of Horapollo that the Monad ([Greek: monas]), which the Egyptians held to be the basis of all numeration, was equal to two drachms, that is, to 135 grs.

Passing westward let us try and learn something from the early coinage of Italy. Unfortunately, with the exception of]