570th ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING, 



HELD IN COMMITTEE ROOM B, THE CENTRAL HALL 

 WESTMINSTER, ON MONDAY, MAY 17th, 1915, AT 4.30 p.m. 



E. J. Sewell, Esq., in the Chair. 



The Minutes of the preceding Meeting were read and confirmed. 



The Secretary announced that Mr. Walter Henry Bacon, the 

 Rev. William Edgar Woodhams Denham, and Miss Jessie Little had 

 ixvn elected Associates of the Institute. 



The Chairman introduced the Rev. Archibald R. S. Kennedy, M.A., 

 D.D., Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages in the University of 

 Edinburgh, and called upon him to address the Meeting on the subject 

 of " Hebrew Weights and Measures." 



HEBREW WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. By Professor 

 Archibald R. S. Kennedy, M.A., D.D. 



THE sources of our information regarding the weights and 

 measures of the nations of antiquity are of two kinds, 

 monumental and literary. Under the first head, the 

 monumental evidence, fall (a) such actual standards of measure- 

 ment as have survived to our own day — inscribed weights, 

 measuring-rods, etc.. and (b) other archaeological remains, such 

 as coins and buildings, from which their respective units of 

 weight and of length may be readily deduced. The literary 

 evidence is also of a twofold character, since it includes (a) the 

 direct evidence of early writers on metrology, and (b) the more or 

 less incidental references in ordinary writers to the values of the 

 various standards in use in their day. 



As regards Hebrew weights and measures in particular, the 

 monumental evidence is exceedingly limited. Indeed it is only 

 in the department of the weight-standards of Palestine, for 

 which a considerable amount of fresh evidence has recently 

 come to light, that we have monumental data of any extent. 

 As for the literary evidence, it may be said that while the 

 Biblical data are on the whole sufficient to enable us to re- 

 construct the various scales, and to determine the relative values 

 of the different denominations in each scale, we are dependent 



