Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/225

 Weight standards.

"Silver was very rarely at this early period weighed by the same talent and mina as gold, but, according to a standard derived from the gold weight, somewhat as follows:-

Gold was to silver as 13·3 : 1. This proportion made it difficult to weigh both metals on the same standard. That a round number of silver shekels or staters might equal a gold shekel or stater, the weight of the silver shekel was either raised above or lowered below that of the gold. The heavy gold shekel weighed 260 grains Troy, being the double of the light gold shekel, which weighed 130 grains Troy (8·4 grammes).

I. From the heavy gold shekel of 260 grains:

260 × 13·3 = 3458 grains of silver. 3458 grains of silver = 15 shekels of 230 grains each.

On the silver shekel of 230 grains the Phoenician or Graeco-Asiatic silver standard may be constructed:

Talent = 690,000 grains = 3000 staters (or shekels). Mina  =  11,500 grains =   50 staters. Stater      230 grains.

II. From the light gold shekel of 130 grains we get the so-called Babylonian or Persian standard:

130 x 13·3 = 1729 grains of silver. 1729 grains of silver = 10 shekels of 172·9 grains each.

On the silver shekel or stater of 172·9 grains the Babylonic, Lydian, and Persian silver standard may be thus constructed:—

Talent = 518,700 grains = 3000 staters = 6000 sigli. Mina  =    8645 grains =   50   "     = 100   " Stater =  172·9 grains =    1   "     = 2     " Siglos =  86·45 grains."