HEBREW WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 



287 



Here, too, I propose to place, provisionally at least, a series 

 of ten or twelve inscribed weights from various parts of Southern 

 Palestine, including Jerusalem and its neighbourhood, and, let 

 us note, " the Persian and Hellenistic " strata of Gezer. The 

 distinguishing feature of the series is the presence of a symbol 

 resembling X with a connecting bar across the top, ^, and 

 standing for the unit or shekel of the series. (Fig. 2.) It is 

 accompanied by numerical signs belonging to a hitherto unknown 

 notation, the value of which, however, may be inferred from the 

 weight relative to the two known signs I and II. Of the ten 

 catalogued by Mr. Macalister (op. cit., ii, 287 ff., cf. Pilcher. 

 I'.E.F.St., 1912, 191) two must be set aside as decidedly 

 abnormal or fraudulent : an average of the remaining eight 

 gives a unit of approximately 175 grs., a trifle in excess of the 

 normal Persian silver shekel. Staters of this as a maximum 

 value were struck in Cyprus and at Aradus, in Phoenicia, in the 

 Persian period. 



We have not quite finished with this popular standard, for a 

 still more perplexing problem is presented by three small 

 weights which have recently come to light, each inscribed with 

 three old Hebrew or Phoenician characters, the meaning of which 

 is still to seek. The average weight of the three is 116*4 grs., 

 and as, faute de mieux, I would read the inscription (Fig. 3) 

 as a contraction of the Hebrew words for " two-thirds " {Exp. 

 Times, xxiv, 541), we reach a unit of 174*6 grs., almost identical 

 with the unit last mentioned, which was referred to the 

 Persian standard. (For the latest attempts to solve the riddle 

 of the mvsterious trinity of letters, see P.E.F.St., 1914, 99; 

 1915, 40/.) 



(v) The JEyinetan Standard. 



One of the oldest and most widely spread weight-standards 

 of antiquity, believed by eminent metrologists (Hultsch and 

 Petrie) to have been in use in Egypt as far back as the time of 

 Khufu, the builder of the great pyramid, is that known as the 

 ^Eginetan. The name is due to its having been adopted as the 

 standard of the earliest currency of Europe, that of the island 

 of ^Egina. Besides being the almost universal commercial 

 standard in Greece, it was in use all round the Eastern Medi- 

 terranean, including Cyprus and Crete. It need not surprise us, 

 therefore, to find among the Gezer weights a square leaden disc 

 weighing 4,923 grs. (about 11 J oz.), with the official inscription 

 of the Agoranomos : " Year 84 (?) " — this, if correctly read, is 

 229-228 B.C. — " of Sosipater, Controller of the market, ^ mina." 



