Early inscribed Hebrew 'Weights.
UICI2ST HEBREW WEiaHT (a) EBOM SAMAR11.
spring of 1890 Dr. Chaplin purchased at Nablus a small shuttle-.shaped stone weight, here reproduced,
* Literally, 'after (the standard of) the kind's stnnf-.' That the Hebrew, like the early Babylonian, weights were of stone, is shown by the fact that |5(< is elsewhere frequently used in OT in the sense of ' a weight ' ; cf. Lv 19», Dt 2S'», Pr 16" etc.
Weight of
Actual
resultant
Description of Weight.
weight
heavy
in grains.
shekel
in grains.
A
Small shuttle-shaped weight
89-2
/ 313-6 ■I 166-8
of hiematite from Samaria,
with inscriptions ^'^i j;3T
'?[?]» y3T [J nezfph~\
shekel). lUustr. PEFSt,
1880, 267 ; 1894, 2S".
B
A perforated 'bead' of red- dish-vellow stone from Ana-
168
312
thoth inscribed 'ISJ. Actual
weight 134 grains : before
perforation approximately
15« grains (ib. 1893, 321.,
257 ; illust. Clermont-Gan-
neau, op. cit. 26).
0
Small dome-shaped weight of reddish stone from Tell Zakariya, inscribed 1^: (Bliss, PEFSt, 1899, 107 1.; illust. ib. plate 7).
157-5
316
/^^^■o similar weight* ; one of
'
white limestone, the other
D
E
of 'light reddish' stone,
146-T
29S
. with the same legend as Ii
- 13»
278
and 0. Same provenance
as C (Bliss, ib. 183, with
I, illust.).
.
The last two, of soft limestone, are evidently much worn, and may be neglected in favour of the better preserved sjiecimens in our determination ol the unit here disclosed. Starting from the mora extended inscription of the Chaplin weight, the characters of which point to an 8th cent, date, i<t
WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
"WEIGHTS AND MEASURES 905
note, first of all, the inlluence of the Babylonian double standard. This alone explains how tliis tiny weifjht tan be at once the fourth of a whole Bheki'l and the same fraction of a half -shekel, assiiniinj; tliat this is the true sense of nezeph (see Clermont Ganneau, op. cil. 30 f.). Furtlicr, altliuugh of liard hu'niatite, the condition of the ins<ri|)tion shows that it has lost a tritle of its original value, which must have been not less than 40 grains. As it represents a quarter (cf. the ^R? V3T or quarter-shekel of Saul's servant, 1 S 9'), this f;ives IGO j;rains for the liyht shekel, the half or nezeph of tlie corresponding heavy shekel of 320 grains— a result entirely in harmony with the original values of weights B and C. The great importance of these new discoveries lies in the fact tliat we have here a shekel liitherto unknown in Palestine. Indeed it appears to have been un- known to nietrologists until discovered in numer- ous examples by Flinders Fetrie in Naukratis and neiglibourhood (Fetrie, Naukratis, pt. L 78, 85 f.; Tanis, pt. ii. 84, 91 f. ; cf. his art. ' Weights and Mea-sures' in Encyc. Brit.* xxiv. 487 f.). The standard of these weights is named the ' 80-grain standard' by Fetrie, who regards it as derived from 'the Assyrian 5 or 10 shekel weight, binarily divided and used as an independent unit,' since 128 grains x lO-i-4 gives 320 grains. While differing witli reluctance from so distinguished a metrolo- gist, the writer still adheres to the conclusion he tad come to before having an opportunity of con- sulting the Naukratis and Tanis volumes, viz. that the new Palestinian weights are derived directly from the Babylonian miua of 16,000-8000 grains, tlie origin of which has already been fully ex- plained. Tlie shekels of tliese minas, of course, yield 266-133 grains, on the sexagesimal system ; out in the West tliis system never supjilanted what must be regarded as the earlier decimal system. Hitherto it has been usual, it is true, to a.s.sume that the Helirews in early times adopted the sexagesimal .system in its entirety — the talent containing 60 minas of 60 shekels eat'D (so even by our most recent authority on Hebrew archaeology, Nowack, Hell. Arch. i. 208); but proof of this view is entirely wanting. For the attempt to obtain it from the corrupt MT and the EV render- ing of E/.k 45''-' ' twenty shekels, live and twenty shekels, hfteen shekels [ = 60 shekels] shall be your nianeh,' is grammatically and otherwise inadmis- sible. The only possible remedy for this passage is, with all recent critics, to accept the reading of the codex A of the LXX, ana render : * five (sliekels) shall be five, and ten shekels ten, and fifty shekels shall be your mina'; i.e. the weights in everyday use, like tlie measures referred to in the verses preceding and following, shall be neither more nor less than the standard value.
In the West, then, we liohl that from the first a comiiromise was efVected between the decimal and sexage.-iimal systems, and that, while the le.^^s frequently used talent of 60 mina.s was retained, tl.c ' raised ' minas of 16,000 and 8000 grains were divided by 50 to yield shekels of 320 and 160grain.s. The fact to which Fetrie calls attention (.iVa«- Icr'itii, i. 85 f.), that the Egyptian weights of this itapdnrd are of large size, averaging 2000 grains, " Fet lie's weights, Nos. 483, 486, 1282, 1286, tne largest found, are all c. 8000 grains, — seems to tell in fp.k-our of the derivation here proposed and against the derivation from a snniller unit. I'ctrie, however, is of the opinion, to which we were led independently after repeated attempts to find the shekel of the Syrian tribute lists, that the shekel in (|uestion is to he found in this new 80- grain unit, which he therefore jiroposes 'to call in future the llittite standard' (/Vijii'.v, ii. 92). On the whole, however, a safer nomenclature would be