Historia numorum : a manual of Greek numismatics / by Barclay V. Head.

  • Barclay Vincent Head
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Historia numorum : a manual of Greek numismatics / by Barclay V. Head. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    34/908 page 30
    Lion and Duck weights of Babylonia and Assyria. measures of capacity and their system of weights were based, it is thought, upon one and the same unit as their measures of Time and Space1, and as they are believed to have determined the length of an hour of equinoctial time by means of the dropping of water3, so too it is conceivable that they may have fixed the weight of their Talent, their Mina and their Shekel, as well as the size of their measures of capacity, by weighing or measuring the amounts of water which had passed from one vessel into another during a given space of time. Thus, just as an hour consisted of 60 minutes, and the minute of 60 seconds, so the Talent contained 60 minae, and the Mina 60 shekels. The division by sixties, or Sexagesimal system, is quite as characteristic of the Babylonian arithmetic and system of weights and measures, as the Decimal system is of the Egyptian and the modern French. And indeed it possesses one great advantage over the Decimal system, inasmuch as the number 60, upon which it is based, is more divisible than io. About 1300 years before our era the Assyrian Empire came to surpass in importance that of the Babylonians, but the learning and science of Chaldaea were not lost, but rather transmitted through N iniveh by means of the Assyrian conquests and commerce to the north and west as far as the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Let us now turn to the actual monuments. Some thirty years ago Mr. Layard discovered and brought home from the ruins of ancient Niniveh a number of bronze Lions of various sizes, which may now be seen in the British Museum. With them were also a number of stone objects in the form of Ducks. The bronze Lions are for the most part fur- nished with a handle on the back of the animal, and they are generally in- scribed with a double legend, one in cuneiform characters, the other in Aramaic. These inscriptions furnish us with the name of the king of Assyria or of Babylonia in whose reign the Lions and Ducks were fabricated; and what is more to the purpose, they also state the number of minae or fractions of a mina which each one originally represented. There can therefore be no manner of doubt that these Lions and Ducks are genuine weights; or possibly even official standards of weight deposited from time to time in the royal palaces. At any rate it seems to be implied by the inscriptions on some of them, such as on three of the largest and most ancient of the Duck-weights, the following in cuneiform characters :— (1) ‘The Palace of Irba-Merodach, king of Babylon [circ. B.c. 1050]. 30 Manahs.’ Wt. 15060-5 grm. yielding a Mina of 502 grm. (2) ‘Thirty Manahs of Nabu-suma-libur, king of Assyria’ [date unknown]. Wt, 14589 grm. A small portion of this weight is broken off: if tliis is allowed for, it would yield a mina of about the same weight as No. 1. (3) ‘ Ten Manahs ’ (somewhat injured); bears the name of 1 Dungi,’ according to Geo. Smith, king of Babylon about b.c. 2000. Wt. 4986 grm. yielding a Mina oi 498-6 grm. 1 Brandis, Mum- Mass- u. Gewichtswesen, p. 33 seqq. 2 Brandis, op. cit., p. 19.
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