Page:Origin of metallic currency and weight standards.djvu/302

 they had borrowed the hieroglyphic syllabic symbols, which with them became the Alphabet), had employed the light shekel, the only gold unit that likewise from first to last prevailed throughout the vast regions of Central Asia Minor, and as we have seen, was the unit of Greece even in the early days when the great cities of Mycenae and Tiryns were in direct contact with, and deriving their arts and civilization from Asia or from Egypt.

The derivation of the Phoenician silver standard of about 225 grs. (14·58 gram.) according to the hitherto received doctrine is as follows. As the Babylonians formed their silver standard by making into ten pieces the amount of silver equivalent to the "light gold shekel," so the Phoenicians and Syrians are supposed to have divided the amount of silver equivalent to "the heavy shekel" into fifteen pieces, gold being to silver in each case as 13·3 : 1. But we ask why did the Phoenicians adopt so awkward a scale as the quindecimal when it was possible for them to employ the decimal or duodecimal? In the next place by the supposed system 7-1/2 silver shekels were equal to one light shekel, that is the gold unit which was universally employed amongst all the peoples with whom they traded: and what number could be more awkward for purposes of exchange than 7-1/2? If therefore we can show that it is probable that at one period silver was exceedingly abundant in Phoenicia compared with gold, and that consequently gold was worth considerably more than 13 times its weight in silver, the sole support for the heavy shekel being the Phoenician unit is removed, and the theory of the fifteen stater system falls to the ground. It is well known that the Phoenicians had much of the trade of Cilicia and the other coast regions of Asia Minor in their hands. It was Cilicia that produced the chief supplies of silver for Western Asia. From this land therefore the Phoenicians obtained vast quantities of silver, and it was from them almost certainly the Egyptians, who had no native silver, obtained a supply of that metal. But this was not all. About 1000 the Phoenicians, in their quest after new and unexhausted regions, made their way westward and reached