HKIMKW WKKJMTS AND M EASU RKS. 



279 



August and September, 1913, " Inscribed Hebrew Weights from 

 Palestine"); the results will be summarized below. Cf. E. J. 

 Pilcher, Weights of Ancient Palestine (from P.KF.SL, 1912). 



The weights in question are almost all of stone, as we should 

 ex poet from the Old Testament references, where the Hebrew 

 won! rendered " weight " literally means " a stone" (Leviticus 

 xix, 36, Deuteronomy xxv, 13, 15, etc.). "Hard, compact, and 

 heavy stones, capable of taking a polish, such as haematite, 

 jasper, basalt, and quartzite, are the stones chiefly used " 

 (Macalister, op. cit, ii, 279/ — where see fig. 429 for illustration 

 of " typical forms of weights "). For the smaller weights the two 

 commonest forms are the shuttle-shaped and the dome-shaped, the 

 former tapering to a blunt point at both ends, the latter "either 

 hemispherical, or more or less cylindrical, with convex top and 

 plane base." 



The influence of Babylonia on the Hebrew weight-system is 

 seen in the adoption of the Babylonian scale of three 

 denominations based on the shekel as unit ; 50 shekels made a 

 mina (Hebrew maneh), and 3,000 shekels, or 60 minas, a talent. 

 That the shekel was the unit of weight among the Hebrews is 

 evident from the rarity of the term mina in the Old Testament. 

 The pre- exilic writers, indeed, never use the mina or " pound," 

 preferring to express even large weights of silver in terms of the 

 shekel, and the largest as so many talents and shekels. 



A very slight acquaintance with the actual weights recovered 

 from the soil of Palestine reveals the existence side by side, in 

 ancient times, of a bewildering variety of standards of weight. 

 Let me try to pass in review the more assured, at least, of these 

 standards. 



(i) The Phoenician or 22^-gvain shekel. 



This is the best attested of all the Palestinian weight- 

 standards. Its unit is the shekel universally known as the 

 Phoenician shekel from the fact that the rich series of silver 

 coins struck by the great trading cities of Phoenicia, such as 

 Tyre and Sidon, are on this standard. The highest effective 

 weight shown by the coins is 223*8 grs. (Hill, Brit. Mus. Cat. 

 [B.M.C.], Coins of Phoenicia, p. cxxxiv), and the theoretical 

 weight of the shekel is usually reckoned as 224*6 grs. The 

 average weight, however, of the shekels or tetradrachms of 

 the coinage both of the Phoenician cities and of the Ptolemies 

 of Egypt, who adopted this standard, may be set down as about 

 218 grs., the weight of our own half-crown. 



Now the shekel of 218-224 grs. has this special interest 



