Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/256

 Egyptian Five-Kat weight (Harris Collection).

that it has all the authority that belongs to a weight used for official purposes, its value becomes still greater. Such a piece fortunately exists in the Harris Collection. It is a beautifully preserved serpentine weight, and weighs 698 grs. Troy. Allowing for its extremely slight loss we may suppose its original weight to have been about 700 grs. It bears the inscription, Five Kats of the Treasury of On. This gives 140 grains Troy as the weight of the kat. This inscription also proves that the kat was the unit. For if as is commonly stated the uten is the unit, of which the kat is simply the one-tenth, we must naturally expect to find this weight described as 1/2 uten rather than as 5 kats. This is confirmed by a statement of the grammarian Horapollo (or Horus, who although writing about 400 nevertheless preserves much valuable information) that "with the Egyptians the didrachm is the monad. But the monad is the source of production of all numeration." As two drachms were 135 grs., it is evident that it is the kat of 140 grs., and not the uten of 1400 grs. which the Egyptians themselves regarded as the basis of their system. Mr Flinders Petrie from the weights of 158 specimens found in the ruins of Naucratis, which range from 136.8 grains to 153 grains, concludes that there were two distinct kat units, one weighing]