Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/218

 sort of connection between Lydia and Assyria in ancient times is probable, though it cannot be proved.

"Professor Sayce is of opinion that the mediators between Lydia in the west, and Assyria in the east, were the people called Kheta or Hittites. According to this theory the northern Hittite capital Carchemish (later Hierapolis) on the Euphrates, was the spot where the arts and civilization of Assyria took the form which especially characterises the early monuments of Central Asia Minor.

"The year 1400 or thereabouts was the time of greatest power of the nation of the Hittites, and if they were in reality the chief connecting link between Lydia and Assyria it may be inferred that it was through them that the Lydians received the Assyrian weight, which afterwards in Lydia took the form of a stamped ingot or coin.

"But why it was that the light mina rather than the heavy one had become domesticated in Lydia must remain unexplained. We know however that one of the Assyrian weights is spoken of in cuneiform inscriptions as the 'weight of Carchemish.' If then the modern hypothesis of a Hittite dominion in Asia Minor turn out to be well founded, the weight of Carchemish might by means of the Hittites have found its way to Phrygia and Lydia, and as the earliest Lydian coins are regulated according to the divisions of the Light Assyrian mina this would probably be the one alluded to.

"From these two points then, Phoenicia on the one hand and Lydia (through Carchemish), on the other, the two Babylonian units of weight appear to have started westwards to the shores of the Aegean sea, the heavy shekel by way of Phoenicia, the lighter shekel by way of Lydia."

So far I have thought it but right to give Mr Head's exposition in extenso, that the enquirer may be enabled to fully grasp the principles of the orthodox school, before we enter on any criticism of them. I shall now treat more summarily all that remains to be said.

Let us briefly state the peculiar doctrines of two leading continental metrologists. The veteran Dr Hultsch derives all standards of weight thus: The royal Babylonian cubit was