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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: SOU-STE |
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STANDARDS OF WEIGHT . For these we have far more complete data than for volumes or even lengths, and can ascertain in many cases the nature of the variations, and their type in each place. The main series on which we shall rely here are those(1) from Assyria (38) about 800 B.c.; (2) from the eastern Delta of Egypt (29) (Defenneh); (3) from western Delta (28) (Naucratis); (4) from Memphis (44)all these about the 6th century B.C., and therefore before much interference from the decreasing coin standards; (5) from Cnidus; (6) from Athens; (7) from Corfu; and (8) from Italy (British Museum) (44). As other collections are but a fraction of the whole of these, and are much less completely examined, little if any good would be done by including them in the combined results, though for special
inscriptions they will be mentioned.146 grains.--The Egyptian unit was the kat, which varied between 138 and 155 grains (28,29). There were several families or varieties within this range, at least in the Delta, probably five or six in all (29). The original
inscriptions ; the series was(n), to=kat, to=uten, to= tema. 14'6 gm. 146 146o 14,600. The tema is the same name as the large wheat measure (35), which was worth 30,000 to 19,000 grains of copper, according to Ptolemaic receipts and accounts (Rev. Eg., 1881, 15o), and therefore very likely worth to utens of copper in earlier times when metals were scarcer. The kat was regularly divided into to; but another division, for the sake of interrelation with another system, was ins and 4, Punic variant of the a bath or saton of Phoenicia. One close datum, it trustworthy, would be log of water =Assyrian mina .. bath about 2200 cub. in. The rabbinical statement of cub. cubit of 21.5 holding 320 logs puts the bath at about 2250 cub. in.; their log-measure, holding six hen's eggs, shows it to be over rather than under this amount; but their reckoning of bath =1 cubit cubed is but approximate; by 21.5 it is 1240, by 25.1 it is 1990 cubic in. The earliest Hebrew system was (log, 4=kab) 3=hin, 6 Z = ( bath, or ? , 5 homerwet. 'issar6n ro y epha 10 (or kor-dry. 32 cub. in. 128 230 283 2300 23,000 'Issaron (" tenth-deal ") is also called gomer. The log and kab are not found till the later writings; but the ratio of hin to `issarbn is practically fixed in early times by the proportions in Num. xv. 4-9. Epiphanius stating great hin =18 xestes, and holy hin =9, must refer to Syrian xestes, equal to 24 and 12 Roman; this makes holy hin as above, and great hin a double hin, i.e. seah or saton. His other statements of saton = 56 or 50 sextaria remain unexplained, unless this be an error for bath =56 or 5o Syr. sext. and .. =2290 or 2560 cub. in. The wholesale theory of Revillout (35) that all Hebrew and Syrian measures were doubled by the Ptolemaic revision, while retaining the same names, rests entirely on the resemblance of the names apet and epha, and of log to the Coptic and late measure lok. But there are other reasons against accepting this, besides the improbability of such a change. The Phoenician and old Carthaginian system was (18)log, 4=kab, 6=saton, 3o=torus, 31 cub. in. 123 740 22,200 valuing them by 31 Sicilian =41 Attic modii (Josephus, above). The old Syrian system was (18)cotyle, 2=Syr. xestes, 18=sabitha or salon, 21 cub. in. 41 740 also Syr. xestes, 45=marls, 2=metretes or 41 185o 3700 The later or Seleucidan system was (18) cotyle, 2=Syr. xestes, go=Syr. metretes, 22 44 '12=collathan, 2=bath-artaba; 11r0 2220 artaba. scarcely found except in the eastern Delta, where it is common (29); and it is known from a papyrus (38) to be a Syrian weight. The uten is found =6=245, in Upper Egypt (rare) (44). Another division (in a papyrus) (38) is a silver weight of Ta kat =about 88perhaps the Babylonian siglus of 86. The uten was also binarily divided into 128 peks of gold in Ethiopia; this may refer to another standard (see 129) (33). The Ptolemaic copper coinage is on two basesthe uten, binarily divided; and the Ptolemaic five shekels (1050), also binarily divided. (This result is from a larger number than other students have used, and study by diagrams.) The theory (3) of the derivation of the uten from 3gls- cubic cubit of water would fix it at 1472, which is accordant; but there seems no authority either in volumes or weights for taking 1500 utens. Another theory (3) derives the uten from 1i,Iuo of the cubic cubit of 24 digits, or better of 2063 ; that, however, will only fit the very lowest variety of the uten, while there is no evidence of the existence of such a cubit. The kat is not unusual in Syria (44), and among the haematite weights of Troy (44) are nine examples, average 144, but not of extreme varieties. 129 grs. ; 258 grs. parentreof ssevarald otherB systems; became the 7750' '5,500' and its derivatives became more widely spread 465,000. than any other standard. It was known in two formsone system (24) of-- urn, 6o=sikhir, 6=shekel, ro=stone, 6=rnaneh, 5o=talent; 36 grs. 21.5 129 1290 7750 465,000 and the other system double of this in each stage except the talent. These two systems are distinctly named on the weights, and are known now as the light and heavy Assyrian systems (19, 24). (It is better to avoid the name Babylonian, as it has other meanings also.) There are no weights dated before the Assyrian bronze lion weights (9, 17, 19, 38) of the lath to 8th centuries B.C. Thirteen of this class average 127.2 for the shekel; 9 haematite barrel-shaped weights (38) give 128.2; 16 stone duck-weights (38), 126-5. A heavier value is shown by the precious metalsthe gold plates from Khorsabad (18) giving 129, and the gold daric coinage (21, 35) of Persia 129.2. Nine weights from Syria (44) average 128.8. This is the system of the " Babylonian " talent, by Herodotus=7o minae Euboic, by Pollux=7o minae Attic, by Aelian=72 minae Attic, and, therefore; about 470,000 grains. In Egypt this is found largely at Naucratis (28, 29), and less commonly at Defenneh (29). In both places the distribution, a high type of 129 and a lower of 127, is like the monetary and trade varieties above noticed; while a smaller number of examples are found, fewer and fewer, down to 118 grains. At Memphis (44) the shekel is scarcely known, and a mina weight was there converted into another standard (of 200). A few barrel weights are found at Karnak, and several egg-shaped shekel weights at Gebelen (44) ; also two cuboid weights from there (44) of i and io utens are marked as 6 and 6o, which can hardly refer to any unit but the heavy shekel, giving 245. Hultsch refers to Egyptian gold rings of Dynasty XVIII. of 125 grains. That this unit penetrated far to the south in early times is shown by the tribute of Kush (34) in Dynasty XVIII.; this is of 8oi, 1443 and 23,741 kats, or 15 and 27 manehs and 71 talents when reduced to this system. And the later Ethiopic gold unit of the pek (7), or i5 of the uten, was 10-8 or more, and may therefore be the sikhir or obolos of 21.5. But the fraction s}8, or a continued binary division repeated seven times, is such a likely mode of rude subdivision that little stress can be laid on this. In later times in Egypt a class of large glass scarabs for funerary purposes seem to be adjusted to the shekel (30). Whether this system or the Phoenician of 224 grains was that of the Hebrews is uncertain. There is no doubt but that in the Maccabean times and onward 218 was the shekel; but the use of the word darkemon by Ezra and Nehemiah , and the probabilities of their case, point to the daragmaneh, cio maneh or shekel of Assyria; and the mention of s shekel by Nehemiah as poll tax nearly proves that the 129 and not 218 grains is intended, as 218 is not divisible by 3. But the Maccabean use of 218 may have been a reversion to the older shekel; and this is strongly shown by the fraction 4 shekel (I Sam. ix. 8), the continual mention of large decimal numbers of shekels in the earlier books, and the certain fact of loo shekels being =mina. This would all be against the 129 or 258 shekel, and for the 218 or 224. There is, however, one good datum if it can be trusted: 300 talents of silver (2 Kings xviii. 14) are 800 talents on Sennacherib's cylinder (34), while the 30 talents of gold is the same in both accounts. Eight hundred talents on the Assyrian silver standard would be 267--0r roundly 30otalents on the heavy trade or gold system, which is therefore probably the Hebrew. Probably the 129 and 224 systems coexisted in the country; but on the whole it seems more likely that 129 or rather 258 grains was the Hebrew shekel before the Ptolemaic times especially as the loo shekels to the mina is paralleled by the following Persian system (Hultsch)--shekel, 65o0=mina .. m.. i . 6o.=.talent . of gold = .. .na 6o=talent of trade, 120 grs. 6450 7750 387,000 465,000 the Hebrew system being gerah, 2o=shekel, too=maneh, 3o=talent, 12.9 grs. 258? 25,800 774,000 and, considering that the two Hebrew cubits are the Babylonian and Persian units, and the volumes are also Babylonian, it is the more likely that the weights should have come with these. From the east this unit passed to Asia Minor; and six multiples of 2 to 20 shekels (ay. 127) are found among the haematite weights of Troy (44), including the oldest of them. On the Aegean. coast it often occurs in early coinage (17)at Lampsacus 131129, Phocaea
126 grs. A variation on the main system was made by forming a mina of 5o shekels. This is one of the Persian series (gold), 6300. and the 4 of the Hebrew series noted above. But it is most striking when it is found in the mina form which distinguishes it. Eleven weights from Syria and Cnidus (44) (of the curious type with two breasts on a rectangular block
If this unit have any connexion with the kat, it is that a kat of gold is worth 15 shekels or 4 mina of silver; this agrees well with the range of both units, only it must be remembered that 129 was used as gold unit: and another silver unit deduced from it. More likely then the 147 and 129 units originated independently in Egypt and Babylonia. From 129 grains of gold was adopted an equal value 8 g8600 sof silver =1720, on the proportion of 1: 13;, and this 5,6,000. was divided in 10 =172which was used either in this form, or its half, 86, best known as the siglus (17). Such a proportion is indicated in Num. vii., where the gold spoon of 10 shekels is equal in value to the bowl of 130 shekels, or double that of 70, i.e. the silver vessels were 200 and Too sigh. The silver plates at Khorsabad (18) we find to be 8o sigh of 84.6. The Persian silver coinage shows about 86o; the danak was a of this or 28.7, Xenophon and others state it at about 84. As a monetary weight it seems to have spread, perhaps entirely, in consequence of the Persian dominion; it varies from 174 downwards, usually 167, in Aradus, Cilicia and on to the Aegean coast, in Lydia and in Macedonia (17). The silver bars found at Troy averaging 2744, or 3 mina of 8232, have been attributed to this unit (17) ; but no division of the mina in a is to be expected, and the average is rather low. Two haematite weights from Troy (44) show 86 and 87.2. The mean from leaden weights of Chios, Tenedos (44), &c., is 8430. A duck-weight of Camirus, probably early, gives 848o; the same passed on to Greece and Italy (17), averaging 861o; but in Italy it was divided, like all,other units, into unciae and scripulae (44). It is perhaps found in Etrurian coin-age as 175172 (17). By the Romans it was used on the Danube (18), two weights of the first legion there showing 861o; and this is the mina of 20 unciae (8400) named by Roman writers. The system was- obol, 6=siglus, too= mina. 68= talent. 14.3 grs. 86 86co 5i6,000 A derivation from this was the a of 172, or 57.3, the so-called Phocaean drachma, equal in silver value to the 26 of the gold 258 grains. It was used at Phocaea
224 grs. That this unit (commonly called Phoenician) is derived 21,200; from the 129 system can hardly be doubted, both being 67z,000. so intimately associated in Syria and Asia Minor. The relation is 258 :229 ::9:8; but the exact form in which the descent took place is not settled: .1t, or 129 of gold is worth 57 of silver or a drachm, 4 of 230 (or by trade weights 127 and 226) ; otherwise, deriving it from the silver weight of 86 already formed, the drachm is of the stater, 172, or double of the Persian danak of 28.7, and the sacred unit of Didyma in Ionia
27; or thirdly, what is indicated by the Lydian coinage (17), 86 of gold was equal to 1150 of silver, 5 shekels or 16 mina. Other pro-posed derivations from the kat or pek are not satisfactory. In actual use this unit varied greatly: at Naucratis (29) there are groups of it at 231, 223 and others down to 208; this is the earliest form in which we can study it, and the corresponding values to these are 130 and 126, or the gold and trade varieties of the Babylonian, while the lower tail down to 208 corresponds to the shekel down to 118, which is just what is found. Hence the 224 unit seems to have been formed from the 129, after the main families or types of that had arisen. It is scarcer at Defenneh (29) and rare at Memphis (44). Under the Ptolemies, however, it became the great unit of Egypt, and is very prominent in the later literature in consequence (18, 35). The average of coins (21) of Ptolemy
('. 8=drachm, 4=shekel, 25=mina, 120=talent. 7 go. 56 224 560o 672,000 From the Phoenician coinage it was adopted for the Maccabean. It is needless to give the continual evidences of this being the later Jewish shekel, both from coins (max. 223) and writers (2, 18, 33) ; the question of the early shekel we have noticed already under 129. In Phoenicia and Asia Minor the mina was specially made in the form with two breasts (44), 19 such weights averaging 560o (=224) ; and thence it passed into Greece, more in a double value of 11,200 (=224). From Phoenicia this naturally became the main Punic unit; a bronze weight from Iol (18), marked Too, gives a drachma of 56 or 57 (224228) ; and a Punic inscription (18) names 28 drachmae =25 Attic, and .. J7 to 59 grains (228236); while a probably later series of 8 marble disks from Carthage (44) show 208, but vary from 197 to 234. In Spain it was 236 to 216 in different series (17), and it is a question whether the Massiliote drachmae of 58-55 are not Phoenician rather than Phocaic. In Italy this mina became naturalized, and formed the " Italic mina " of Hero, Priscian, &c.; also its double, the mina of 26 unciae or Io,800,=5o shekels of 216; the average of 42 weights gives 5390 (=2156), and it was divided both into too drachmae, and also in the Italic mode of 12 unciae and 288 scripulae (44). The talent was of 120 minae of 5400, or 3000 shekels, shown by the talent from Herculaneum, TA, 66o,000 and by the weight inscribed PONDO cxxv. (i.e. 125 librae) TALENTUM SICLOR` \1. iii., i.e. talent of 3000 shekels (2) (the M being omitted; just as Epiphanius describes this talent as 125 librae, or B (=9) nomi,mata, for 9000). This gives the same approximate ratio 96: too to the lira as the usual drachma reckoning. The Alexandrian talent of Festus, 12,000 denarii, is the same talent again. It is believed that this mina +12 unciae by the Romans is the origin of the Arabic ratl of 12 ukiyas, or 5500 grains (33), which is said to have been sent by Harun al-Rashid to Charlemagne, and so to have originated the French monetary pound of 5666 grains. But, as this is probably the same as the English monetary pound, or tower pound of 5400, which was in use earlier (see Saxon coins), it seems more likely that this pound (which is common in Roman weights) was directly inherited from the Roman civilization. 80 grs. Another unit, which has scarcely been recognized in 40~; metrology hitherto, is prominent in the weights from 440 o0o Egyptseine 5o weights from Naucratis and 15 from Defenneh plainly agreeing on this and on no other basis. Its value varies between 76.5 and 81.5mean 79 at Naucratis (29) or 81 at Defenneh (29). It has been connected theoretically with a binary division of the To shekels or " stone " of the Assyrian systems (28), 1290=16 being 80.6; this is suggested by the most usual multiples being 40 and 8o =25 and 50 shekels of 129; it is thus akin to the mina of 50 shekels previously noticed. The tribute of the Asi, Rutennu, Khita, Assaru, &c., to Thothmes III. (34), though in un- even numbers of kats, comes out in round thousands of units when reduced to this standard. That this unit is quite distinct from the Persian 86 grains is clear in the Egyptian weights, which maintain a wide gap between the two systems. Next, in Syria three inscribed weights of Antioch and Berytus (18) show a mina of about 56,400, or 200 X82. Then at Abydus, or more probably from Babylonia, there is the large bronze lion-weight, stated to have been originally 400,500 grains; this has been continually -:-6o by different writers, regardless of the fact (Rev. arch., 1862, 30) that it bears the numeral too; this therefore is certainly a talent of roo minae of 4005; and as the mina is generally 50 shekels in Greek systems it points to a weight of 80.1. Farther west the same unit occurs in several Greek weights (44) which show a mina of 7800 to 8310, mean 8050+ 100 = 8o5. Turning to coinage, we find this often, but usually overlooked as a degraded form of the Persian 86 grains siglos. But the earliest coinage in Cilicia, before the general Persian coinage (17) about 38o B.C., is Tarsus, 164 grains; Soli, 169, 163, 158; Nagidus, 158, 161-153 later; Issus, 166; Mallus, 163-154all of which can only by straining be classed as Persian; but they agree to this standard, which, as we have seen, was used in Syria in earlier times by the Khita, &c. The Milesian or " native " system of Asia Minor (18) is fixed by Hultsch at 163 and 81.6 grainsthe coins of Miletus (17) showing 160, 8o and 39. Coming down to literary evidence, this is abundant. Bockh decides that the "Alexandrian drachma" was 6 of the Solonic 67, or= 80.5, and shows that it was not Ptolemaic, or Rhodian, or Aeginetan, being distinguished from these in inscriptions (2). Then the Alexandrian mina " of Dioscorides and Galen (2) is 20 unciae=8250; in the " Analecta " (2) it is 15o or 158 drachmae=81oo. Then Attic: Euboic or Aeginetan :: 18:25 in the metrologists (2), and the Euboic talent = 7000 " Alexandrian drachmae; the drachma therefore is 8oo. The " Alexandrian " wood talent: Attic talent :: 6:5 (Hero, Didymus), and..48o,000, which is 6o minae of 800o. Pliny states the Egyptian talent at 8o librae=396,000; evidently=the Abydus lion talent, which is= loo, and the mina is..3960, or 50X79'2. The largest weight is the "wood" talent of Syria (18) =6 Roman talents, or 1,86o,000, evidently 120 Antioch minae of 15,500 Or 2 X7750. This evidence is too distinct to be set aside; and, exactly confirming as it does the Egyptian weights and coin weights, and agreeing with the early Asiatic tribute, it cannot be overlooked in future. The system was 5 5o = talent. drachm, 2 =stater, 5o=mina, 6o=Greek talent. 8o grs. 16o 8000 400,000 480,000 207 grs. to 190 This system, the Aeginetan, one of the most im- 9650; portant to the Greek world, has been thought to 579 X00 be a degradation of the Phoenician (17, 21), sup- posing 220 grains to have been reduced in primitive Greek usage to 194. But we are now able to prove that it was an independent system(I) by its not ranging usually over 200 grains in Egypt before it passed to Greece; (2) by its earliest example, perhaps before the 224 unit existed, not being over 208; and (3) by there being no intermediate linking on of this to the Phoenician unit in the large number of Egyptian weights, nor in the Ptolemaic coinage, in which both standards are used. The first example (30) is one with the name of Amenhotep I. (17th century B.C.) marked as " gold 5," which is 5X207.6. Two other marked weights are from Memphis (44), showing 2o1.8 and 196.4, and another Egyptian 191.4. The range of the (34) Naucratis weights is 186 to 199, divided in two groups averaging 190 and 196, equal to the Greek monetary and trade varieties. Ptolemy
Ionia
obol, 6 = drachm, 2 =stater, 5o =mina, 6o=talent. 16 grs. 96 192 9600 576,000 i That this unit was used for gold in Egypt, one thousand years before becoming a silver coin weight in Asia Minor, need not be dwelt on, when we see in the coinage of Lydia (17) gold pieces and silver on the same standard, which was expressly formed for silver alone, i.e. 84 grains, The Attic and Assyrian standards were used indifferently for either gold or silver. It also passed into Italy, but in a smaller multiple of 35 drachmae, or i of the Greek mina; 12 Italian weights (44) bearing value marks (which cannot therefore be differently attributed) show a libra of 2400 or i of 9600, which was divided in unciae and sextulae, and the full-sized mina is known as the 24 uncia mina, or talent of 120 librae of Vitruvius and Isidore (18) =9900. Hultsch states this to be the old Etruscan pound. 412 With the trade mina of 9650 in Greece, and recognized 495 in Italy, we- can hardly doubt that the Roman libra is o grs. the half of this mina. At Athens it was 2 X4900, and on the average of all the Greek weights it is 2 X4825, so that 4950 the librais as close as we need expect. The division by 12 does not affect the question, as every standard that came into Italy was similarly divided. In the libra, as in most other standards, the value which happened to be first at hand for the coinage was not the mean of the whole of the weights in the country; the Phoenician coin weight is below the trade average, the Assyrian is above, the Aeginetan is below, but the Roman coinage is above the average of trade weights, or the mean standard. Rejecting all weights of the lower empire, the average (44) of about too is 4956; while 42 later Greek weights (nomisma, &c.) average 4857, and 16 later Latin ones (solidus, &c.) show 4819. The coinage standard, however, was always higher (18) ; the oldest gold shows 5056, the Campanian Roman 5054, the consular gold 5037, the aurei 5037, the Constantine solidi 5053 and the Justinian gold 4996. Thus, though it fell in the later empire, like the trade weight, yet it was always above that. Though it has no exact relation to the congius or amphora, yet it is closely =4977 grains, the fir, of the cubic foot of water. If, however, the weight in a degraded form, and the foot in an undegraded form, come from the East, it is needless to look for an exact relation between them, but rather for a mere working equivalent, like the loon ounces to the cubit foot in England. Bockh has remarked the great diversity between weights of the same agethose marked " Ad Augusti Temp " ranging 4971 to 5535, those tested by the fussy praefect Q. Junius Rusticus vary 4362 to 5625, and a set in the British Museum (44) belonging together vary 4700 to 5168. The series was- siliqua, 6=scripulum, 4=sextula , 6=uncia, 12 libra, 2.87 grs. 17.2 68.7 412 495o the greater weight being the centumpondium of 495,000. Other weights were added to these from the Greek system- obolus, 6=drachma, 2=si:ilicus, 4=uncia; 8 6 grs. 51.5 103 412 and the sextula after Constantine had the name of solidus as a coin weight, or nomisma in Greek, marked N on the weights. A beautiful set of multiples of the scripulum was found near Lyons (38), from t to 10X17.28 grains, showing a libra of 4976. In Bryzantine times in Egypt glass was used for coin-weights (30), averaging 68o for the solidus=4896 for the libra. The Saxon and Norman ounce is said to average 416.5 (Num. Chron., 1871, 42), apparently the Roman uncia inherited. 67 grs. The system which is perhaps the best known, through 6700; its adoption by Solon in Athens, and is thence called Attic or Solonic, is nevertheless far older than its intro- 407,00, duction into Greece, being found in full vigour in Egypt in the 6th century B.c. It has been usually reckoned as a rather heavier form of the 129 shekel, increased to 134 on its adoption by Solon. But the Egyptian weights render this view impossible. Among them (29) the two contiguous groups can be discriminated by the 129 being multiplied by 30 and 6o, while the 67 or 134 is differently X25, 40, 50 and too. Hence, although the two groups overlap owing to their nearness, it is impossible to regard them as all one unit. The 129 range is up to 131.8, while the Attic range is 13o to 138 (65.69). Hultsch reckons on a ratio of 24:25 between them, and this is very near the true values; the full Attic being 67.3, the Assyrian should be 129.2, and this is just the full gold coinage weight. We may perhaps see the sense of this ratio through another system. The 8o-grain system, as we have seen, was prob- ably formed by binarily dividing the to shekels, or " stone "; and it had a talent (Abydus lion) of 5000 drachmae; this is practically identical with the talent of 600o Attic drachmae. So the talent of the 8o-grain system was sexagesimally divided for the mina which was afterwards adopted by Solon. Such seems the most likely history of it, and this is in exact accord with the full original
of each system. In Egypt the mean value at Naucratis (29) was 66.7, while at Defenneh (29) and Memphis (44)probably rather earlier it was 67o. The type of the grouping is not alike in different places, showing that no distinct families had arisen before the diffusion of this unit in Egypt; but the usual range is 65.5 to 69o. Next it is found at Troy (44) in three cases, all high examples of 68.2 to 68.7; and these are very important, since they cannot be dissociated from the Greek Attic unit, and yet they are of a variety as far removed as may be from the half of the Assyrian, which ranges there from 123.5 to 131 ; thus the difference of unit between Assyrian and Attic in these earliest of all Greek weights is very strongly marked. At Athens a low variety of the unit was adopted for the coinage, true to the object of Solon in depreciating debts; and the first coinage is of only 65.2, or scarcely within the range of the trade weights (28) ; this seems to have been felt, as, contrary to all other states, Athens slowly increased its coin weight up to 66.6, or but little under the trade average. It gradually supplanted the Aeginetan standard in Greece and Italy as the power of Athens rose; and it was adopted by Philip and Alexander (17) for their great gold coinage of 133 and 66.5. This system is often known as the " Euboic," owing to its early use in Euboea, and its diffusion by trade from thence. The series was-- chalcous, 8=obolus, 6=drachma, too=mina, 6o=talanton. 1'4 grs. 11.17 67 6700 402,000 Turning now to its usual trade values in Greece (44), the mean of 113 gives 67.15; but they vary more than the Egyptian examples, having a sub-variety both above and below the main body, which itself exactly coincides with the Egyptian weights. The greater part of those weights which bear names indicate a mina of double the usual reckoning, so that there was a light and a heavy system, a mina of the drachma and a mina of the stater, as in the Phoenician and Assyrian weights. In trade both the minae were divided inand s, regardless of the drachmae. This unit passed also into Italy, the libra of Picenum and the double of the Etrurian and Sicilian libra (17) ; it was there divided in unciae and scripulae (44), the mean of 6 from Italy and Sicily being 6600; one weight (bought in Smyrna) has the name " Leitra " on it. In literature it is constantly referred to; but we may notice the " general mina " (Cleopatra), in Egypt, 16 unciae=6600; the Ptolemaic talent, equal to the Attic in weight and divisions (Hero, Didymus) ; the Antiochian talent, equal to the Attic (Hero) ; the treaty of the Romans with Antiochus, naming talents of 8o librae, i.e. mina of 16 unciae; the Roman mina in Egypt, of 15 unciae, probably the same diminished; and the Italic mina of 16 unciae. It seems even to have lasted in Egypt till the middle ages, as Jabarti and the " katib's guide " both name the rat', misri (of Cairo) as 144 dirhems=676o. r. Denominations.The denominations of trade weights and measures at present used in the United Kingdom are represented by " Board of Trade standards," by which are regulated the accuracy of the common weights and measures handled in shops, &c.:1 Imperial Measures of Length.loo feet, 66 feet or a chain of too links, rod, pole, or perch, measures from to feet to 1 foot; i Board of Trade Model Regulations, 1892; Weights and Measures Acts, 1878 1889, 1892, 1893. 18 inches; yard of 36 inches, 2, *, -& yard, nail, inch, and duodecimal, decimal and binary parts of the inch. Imperial Measures of Capacity.Liquid measures from 32 gallons to I gallon, quart, pint, a pint, gill, z gill, ; gill. Dry measures of bushel, Z bushel, peck, gallon, quart, pint, i pint. Apothecaries' Measures.4o fluid ounces to 1 fl. oz., 16 fluid drachms to 2 fl. dr., 6o minims to i minim. Avoirdupois Weights.Cental (too lb), 56 lb (4 cwt.), 28 lb, 14 lb (stone), 7, 4, 2, i Ib; 8, 4, 2, 1, z ounce (8 drams); 4, 2, 1, i drams. Troy Weights.The ounce (48o gr.) and multiples and decimal parts of the ounce troy from 500 ounces to 0.001 oz. Apothecaries' Weights.'o oz. to i oz. (48o gr.); 4 drachms to z oz.; 2, I drachms; 2 scruples to a scruple; and 6 grains to 'z grain. Pennyweights.2o dwt. (48o grains), to, 5, 3, 2, I dwts. Grain Weights.4000, 2000, moo gr. (making 7000 gr. or I Ib), 500 to oo, gr. 2. The international trade metric weights and measures (1897) handled in shops, &c., of which there are also Board of Trade standards, are set out as follows: End of Article: STANDARDS OF WEIGHT If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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