ent.
In addition to all the above weights on the common standard, we find still another parallel series on the so-called royal standard—the origin of which can only be conjectured,—the latter being simply the common weights raised by a certain percentage. Thus the fold shekel on the royal standard weighs 130 (and 260) in place of 126 (and 252) grains. he first of these weights, the light royal shekel of 130 grains, plays an important part in the subsequent history of the gold coinage of Western Asia (see below, § 3).t+
The Babylono-Phcnician weight-system, as tutlined above, clearly stands in an intimate relation to the Egyptian. Happily, the long-stand- ing feud between Assyriologists and Egyptologists as to the relative antiquity of the two systems does not here concern us, but the fact remains that the Babylonian gold shekel of 126 grains is exactly yoths, the Bab ionian silver shekel of 168 grains $ths, and the Phenician silver shekel of 224 grs. #ths of the Egyptian weight-unit, the ket of 140
i results which cannot be the ‘ accident of an
accident.’ f ae 2 money from t uest to t
Sterling value of the shekel.—The evidence of the tribute-lists of Thothmes tm. and other Egyptian monarchs, confirmed by the more explicit data of the Tel el-Amarna letters, may now be taken as proving beyond a doubt that, in taking possession of the land of Canaan, the Hebrews settled among a people long accustomed to the use of gold and silver as the recogni media of ex- change, and to the use of the ce for estimat- ing the amount of each metal to be given or received. We have not yet been fortunate enough to recover inscribed Canaanite weights of this early period, so that one is compelled to admit at the outset that we have no direct witness to the weight of the ancient Hebrew shekel.t Still the facts adduced in the foregoing section regarding the wide diffusion, in space and time, of the Babylono- Pheenician weight-system, afford at least a strong
of silver, since gold was to silver in the ratio of 18}:1. be & this amount of silver into 10 equal parts, we see that 1 gold shekel of red lat silver shekels of 168 grs.
224 (112) : 336 (168) :: 2:8,
t Professor Ridgeway, in his elaborate work, The Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight- Standards (1892), has en- deavoured with much ingenuity and learning to prove (1) that this light shekel of 180 grains lies at the basis of the weight- systems of antiquity, and (2) that originally ‘it was nothing more than the amount of gold which represented the value of pi otal the unit of barter throughout all Europe, Asia, and
ica.”
t Whatever may have been the standard of weight in use among the Hebrews before the conquest, there need be no hesitation in affirming that from that Se a adopted the standards of the country in which they settled.
epoch onwards the |
MONEY 419
presumption in favour of our accepting it as the
stem by which money was reckoned in Old Testament times. This presumption is confirmed by the following testimonies of the historian Josephus. In the fourteenth book of his An- tiquities he informs us that Crassus robbed the temple of a beam of solid gold 300 minas in weight, and adds the following important sentence: ‘7 δὲ μνᾶ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν ἰσχύει λίτρας δύο Hyucv’ (XIV. vil. 1, ed. Niese, § 106). The Hebrew gold mina, therefore, was equal in weight to 24 Roman pounds, or 12,630 grains (taking the libra [\irpa] according to the best authorities at 5053 grains = 327-45 grammes, see Hultsch, Metrol.* 159-161), which gives 50 shekels of 252°6 grains, the exact weight of the heavy Babylonian shekel (§1). In another passage of the same work, Josephus informs us that the Hebrew silver shekel is equivalent to ‘four Attic drachms’ (Ἀττικὰς δέχεται δραχμὰς τέσσαρας, Ant. II. viii. 10, N. 8.194), by which is meant, as will be shown in the sequel (§ 7), four Roman denarii of 55-56 grains saa This is in complete agreement with the weights of the best specimens of the extant silver shekels, which weigh 218-220 grains, as near an approximation as ancient silver coins in general show to the theoretical standard (in this case 224 grs.).* These conclusions are summed up in the following table, which gives the scale by which it is assumed, throughout this article, that gold and silver were weighed from the con- quest of Canaan to the extinction of Jewish nationality, the weight of the shekel being given to the nearest large fraction :—
GoLp STANDARD,
HEAVY. 1
Shekel - a 4 2524 gra. Mina = 60 shekels cei is "
Talent=3000 ,, δ8,0003,, ὕ»
SILVER STANDARD. Shekel . = : 2244 gre. troy ® 112} gra. Mina = 60shekels 11,2254 ,, if Po ns Talent=8000 ,, 673,5005,, 4, 836,750 ,,
Notes.
1, The standard weight of the English sovereign (20 shillings) is 123°274 grains troy. The ordinary or heavy gold shekel, therefore, weighed a little more than two soverei
2. Since a pound avoirdupois contains 7000 pa oy the Hebrew
πεν weighed 6. 108 lb., rather less than a hundredweight
112 Ib.). ais Rather more than the weight of an English half-crown 8 gre.
4. As the pound troy contains 5760 grs. the silver mina may be taken as = circa 2 troy pounds, or more precisely 1} 1b. avoirdupois,