* For the construction of the Egyptian balance, see Flinders Petrie, A Season in Egypt, p. 42, oa pl. xx. ; also art. BALANCE in this Dictionary, by the same authority.
+ The seapretance. of this testimony was first noted by O. F.
Lehmann, ‘ Aus dem Funde von Tel-el-Amarna’ in the Zeitsch. f. Assyriologie, iii. 391-393.
the sovereigns of Babylonia, such as Kallimasin (sea Winckler’s Tel-el-Amarna Tablets, 2-2) 5%. 27. 83 and Burnaburyash (74 44), reckoning their gol
and silver by shekels, minas, and talents, but also the kings of the West, such as Dushratta of Mitanni (17°: δ). 6) and the king of Alashia, which is Cyprus (25! 26° 2718 33°—in three cases the metal is copper), employing the same system.*
This system, which is based on the mina, with its subdivision (jth) the shekel and its multiple the talent (60 minas), was in use in Babylonia from time immemorial. From the evidence of inscribed stone-weights dating from the reigns of Gudea and Dungi, i.e. from the first half of the third millennium B.c., Dr. C. F. Lehmann has recently proved in numerous essays (see esp. Das altbabylonische Maas- und Gewichtssystem, 1893) that what may be called the common trade mina was a weight averaging 491°2 grammes=circa 7580 grains. The sixtieth part of this trade mina was the shekel of c. 126 grains,t+ while the talent consisted, as above indicated, of 60 minas, or 3600 shekels. The temple accounts from Tello further show that about B.c. 2000 the shekel was sub- divided into 180 shé (G. Reissner, ‘ Altbabylonische Masse ἃ. Gewichte,’ in the Sitzungsb. d. Berliner Akad. d. Wissensch. 1896, PP. 417-426). Side by side with the above series of trade weights was a fea series of the same denominations, but of
ouble the weight. The latter are known as the heayy shekel (252 grains), mina, and talent re- speck dy. to distinguish them from the light shekel (126 grs.), mina, and talent first mentioned. All these were employed for the weighing of ordinary merchandise. For weighing the preci- ous metals, on the other hand, important altera- tions were made in the scale. Thus, for gold, the shekel of 126 (and 252) grains} was retained, but a new mina of 50, instead of 60, shekels was created, the talent of gold, however, still com- prising 60 of these new minas of c. 6320 (12,640) grains, and therefore 3000 shekels, as compared with the trade talent of 3600 shekels. For silver, as money, the weights were on a different scale, being to the weights for gold just enumerated in the ratio of 4:3; in other words, the light Baby- lonian silver shekel=168 grains, the mina of 950 shekels = 8400 grs., and the talent = 60 minas (with, as before, their respective heavy denomina- tions of double these weights). It has been custom- ary since Brandis (see op. cit.) to account for this double scale for the precious metals by the long- prevailing ratio of gold to silver in early times, viz. 40:3, which means that an ingot of gold was worth 134 times its weight in silver. The ex- treme awkwardness of this propeeen for every- day transactions, if the metals were to be weighed on one and the same standard, scarcely needs to be pointed out. Hence, in order that a given weight of gold might be exchangeable for a whole (not a fractional) number of bars or wedges of silver, the weight of the silver shekel (mina, talent) was raised till it stood to that of the gold shekel in the proportion of 4:3. The practical result of this alteration was that a given weight of gold was always equivalent to ten times the same weight of silver (1 gold shekel=10 silver shekels, 2 minas of gold=20 minas of silver, etc.).§
*The statement 8198. is noteworthy. Burnaburyash com- plains that the king of Egypt had sent him nominally 20 minas δ gold, ey when tested, is quantity had shrunk to 5 minas of fine go
+ Throughout this article fractions have been avoided, except where special accuracy seemed to be required.
t The reader is reminded that an ounce troy weight contains 480 grains; the light Babylonian gold shekel, therefore, is slightly over } oz. troy, and only three grains heavier than an English sovereign (see Table, below).
§ The equation of the two metals may be stated more ex: plicitly thus: 1 gold shekel of 126 grs.=126 x13}, or 1680 gra
MONEY
This extremely convenient ratio between the respective denominations was not, however, uni- versally adopted in the East. The great mercantile cities of the Phcenician coast when, at a later
riod, they began to strike coins, employed a
eavy silver shekel of circa 224 grains—hence universally known as the Pheenician shekel—with its companion light shekel of 112 grains. This shekel was one of the most widely spread of all the weights of prada an Mow found not only through- out Syria, but in Western Asia Minor, and even in Greece (for further details and discussion as to origin, etc., see WEIGHTS AND MEASURES). It stands, as a glance will show, to the heavy Baby- lonian silver shekel in the proportion of 2:3;* consequently with gold to silver in the ratio of 134: 1, the gold shekel of 252 (126) grains is equivalent to fifteen Phenician silver shekels of 224 (112) grains, since 252 x 184=224x15. On the Pheenician silver standard, as on the Babylonian, ne shekels went to the mina, and 60 minas to the