Egyptian weighing Rings for Money. from Lepsins Denkmäler, Abth. iii. Bl. 39, No. 3. See also Wilkinson's Anc. Eg. it 10 for weights in the form of a crouching antelope; and comp. Layard's Nin. and Bab po 600-602. APPENDIX III. TABLES OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. A. HEBREW WEIGHTS. THE chief Unit was the SHEKEL (i. e., weight), called also the Holy Shekel or Shekel of the Sanctuary; subdivided into the Beka (i. e., half) or half-shekel,' and the Gerah (i. e., a grain or bean). The chief multiple, or higher unit, was the Kikkar (i. e., circle or globe, probably for an aggregate sum), translated in our Version, after the LXX. TALENT; subdivided into the Maneh (i. e., part, portion, or number), a word used in Babylonian and in the Greek uva, or Mina. 1. The relations of these weights, as usually employed for the standard of weighing silver, and their absolute values, determined from the extant silver coins, and confirmed from other sources, were as follows, in grains exactly, and in avoirdupois weight approximately :2 A quarter-shekel is mentioned in one passage (1 Sam. ix. 8). These approximate values are given as most generally useful. They are obtained by taking the ounce avoirdupois at 440 grains instead of 437·5, its actual value. 2. For Gold a different SHEKEL was used, probably of foreign introduction. Its value has been calculated at from 129 to 132 grains. The former value assimilates it to the Persian Daric of the Babylonian standard. The Talent of this system was just double that of the silver standard; it was divided into 100 manehs, and each maneh into 100 shekels, as follows:3 3. There appears to have been a third standard for Copper, namely :—a shekel four times as heavy as the Gold Shekel (or 528 grains), 1500 of which made up the Copper Talent of 792.000 grains. It seems to have been subdivided, in the coinage, into halves (of 264 grains), quarters (of 132 grains), and sixths (of 88 grains).* B. HEBREW MONEY. 1. We have no evidence of the use of coined money before the return from the Babylonian captivity; but silver was used for money, in quantities determined by weight, at least as early as the time of Abraham; and its earliest mention is in the generic sense of the price paid for a slave (Gen. xvii. 13). The 1000 pieces of silver paid by Abimelech to Abraham (Gen. xx. 16), and the 20 pieces of silver for which Joseph was sold to the Ishmaelites (Gen. xxxvii. 28) were probably rings such as we see on the Egyptian monuments in the act of being weighed. This circumstance seems to prove that they were not of a sufficiently determinate value to pass by number merely; though, on the other hand, the mention of so many pieces for definite sums 3 The maneh is alike in both systems. 5 See cut as delineated on the preceding 4 For the data on which the calculations page. The gold rings found in Celtic counare based, and for further information on the tries are also supposed to have been used for whole subject, see Dict. of Bible, art. Weights money. and Measures. implies a unit by which they could be counted. The history of Joseph and the famine seems to shew that the Canaanites and Egyptians had a similar currency; and it clearly proves that barter was only resorted to when the stock of money was exhausted. 6 In the first recorded transaction of commerce, the cave of Machpelah is purchased by Abraham for 400 shekels of silver, and it was this just weight that was recognized as current with the merchant ("money" is not in the original: Gen. xxiii. 15, 16). The shekel weight of silver was the unit of value through the whole age of Hebrew history down to the Babylonian captivity. In only one place is there a mention of so many shekels of gold as a sum of money (1 Chr. xxi. 25), and even here, in the older parallel passage, silver only is mentioned (2 Sam. xxiv. 9). In the transaction between Naaman and Gehazi, the "six thousand of gold " (2 K. v. 5, where pieces is not in the original) probably denotes shekels, like the “six hundred of gold” in 1 K. x. 16. 2. After the Captivity we have the earliest mention of coined money, in allusion, as might have been expected, to the Persian coinage, the gold Daric (Heb. darkmon, LXX. Spaxμń and xpvovvs, Vulg. drachma and solidus, A.V. dram: Ezra ii. 69, viii. 27; Neh. vii. 70, 71, 72). The actual weight of these Darics, about 128 grains, corresponds nearly enough to the gold shekel of 132 grains." No native Jewish coinage appears to have existed till Antiochus VII. Sidetes granted Simon Maccabæus the license to coin money (B.c. 140); and it is now generally agreed that the oldest Jewish silver coins belong to this period. They are shekels and half-shekels, of the weights, as already stated, of 220 and 110 grains. With this silver there was associated a copper coinage, some pieces of which have been supposed to reach as high as Judas Maccabæus; but probably none are really older than John Hyrcanus (B.C. 135), from whom the series is continued, almost without interruption, to the end of the Asmonean house. Most of them are marked as the half or quarter (doubtless of the shekel), their average weights being 2351 and 132 grains; and there is a third piece of about 82 grains, which seems to be the sixth of a shekel. The abundant money of Herod the Great, which is of a thoroughly Greek character, and of copper only, seems to have been a continuation of the copper coinage of the Maccabees, with some adaptation to the Roman standard. It appears to be of three denominations; the smallest being a piece of brass (xa^koйç), of which the next was the double (Sixaλkoç), and the third the treble (7pixaĥkos). The first and commonest of these, some specimens of In the second transaction another term is used: Jacob purchases a field at Shalem, near Shechem, for 100 kesitahs, a word which seems to be connected with an Arabic root signifying equal division. Were we to accept the older interpretation, lambs, it would be explained not of money coined with that figure, but of weights made in that shape; for we have numerous pictures and specimens of Egyptian and Assyrian weights in the forms of lions, bulls, antelopes, geese, and ducks; and it may have been through a similar step that pecunia was derived from pecus. The mention of what is doubtless also the daric (adarkon) in 1 Chron. xxix. 7, is an interesting confirmation of Ezra's authorship of the Chronicles. Here it seems to signify a weight, namely, the shekel; but in the passages of Ezra and Nehemiah gold coins are evidently meant. The common derivation of the Daric (aTaτhρ Aapeiκós), from Darius, the son of Hystaspes, is very doubtful; and the form darkmon (used in all the passages except that from the Chronicles) suggests an affinity with drachma, in the cognate Persic and Greek. The coins may be referred to the same standard, the Persian Daric being the equivalent of the Lydian and Attic gold stater, and equal in weight to the Attic silver didrachm. |