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    Ancient Weights and Measures
    Ancient Weights and Measures
    Ancient Weights and Measures
    Ebook282 pages2 hours

    Ancient Weights and Measures

    By W. M. Flinders Petrie

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    About this ebook

    Facsimile of volume of detailed catalogs prepared by Flinders Petrie of ancient weights and measures based on examination of over 4000 Egyptian weights within his collections.

    Eight standards have been identified and are described. The text discusses forms, multiples and fractions of standard weights, materials, and evidence for the adoption of different standards. A much smaller collection of steelyards, measures of capacity, lineal measures, and balances is also described and illustrated.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOxbow Books
    Release dateApr 20, 2023
    ISBN9798888570111
    Ancient Weights and Measures
    Author

    W. M. Flinders Petrie

    Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853–1942) was a pioneer in the field of ‘modern’ archaeology. He introduced the stratigraphical approach in his Egyptian campaigns that underpins modern excavation techniques, explored scientific approaches to analysis and developed detailed typological studies of artefact classification and recording, which allowed for the stratigraphic dating of archaeological layers. He excavated and surveyed over 30 sites in Egypt, including Giza, Luxor, Amarna and Tell Nebesheh.

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      Book preview

      Ancient Weights and Measures - W. M. Flinders Petrie

      WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

      INTRODUCTION

      1. T

      HE

      subject of ancient weights and measures has been more neglected than other branches of archaeology. Only two or three dozen Egyptian weights had been published, when my excavations at Naukratis brought to light some five hundred. This former paucity was entirely due to neglect; it has been the same in most other excavations, whereas the work of the British School has added almost every year to the known material. Thus we have now at University College over four thousand weights, or about two thirds of all the Egyptian weights known; most of the remainder being those published in Naukratis and Tanis II and Defenneh, which were presented to American museums.

      2. In view of the mass of material, it has seemed best to simplify future reference by incorporating in one series the scattered publications since those of Naukratis and Defenneh. Hence the numbering in those volumes is to be retained; while the shorter numbered lists published since, are here cancelled, and included in the single series of the present volume. The former series of type drawings of form are retained, as in Naukratis, except in two types which it was desirable to re classify. The much larger variety of types now known has been incorporated (on the decimal system) by adding—for instance—types 331 to 339 between types 33 and 34. No additions have been made between the first ten types, in order to avoid confusion with subsequent numbers. Thus the present work forms a homogeneous whole with the earlier work of forty years ago. As much fresh information has accrued since that date, modifying the arrangement of the weights, there is here included a skeleton list of the latest attribution of all the earlier weights published in Naukratis, Defenneh, and the Cairo Catalogue. Thus nearly all the Egyptian material for study is at hand in this volume. The whole subject of Arabic glass weights is deferred for a second volume, to follow the present one.

      3. A revision of earlier studies was necessary, owing to the great advance made in recent years in Palestinian metrology. Four standards of weight have been found named on weights from Palestine (pl. xxiii), the Necef, the Peyem, the Beqa, and another with the monogram of XO, which I here render as the Khoirīnē, on evidence stated further on. Of these four standards, two had been already recognized in Egypt, but without original names, and two are quite new to us, and serve to clear up the Egyptian metrology, so that no limbo of unclassified material now remains.

      Thus, by the material now known, we are forced to recognize eight standards in use in Egypt, which we shall specify and discuss. Each has so much variation between the different examples, that they form a continuous overlapping series, which can best be stated as starting from the peyem, beginning at 114 grains, to the sela, or Phoenician unit, ending at the double of that, 228 grains. Between these limits there is no unassigned place in the scale, and the variations are such that the ranges of the eight standards slightly overlap. Such a situation might seem to reduce the subject to a mere arbitrary assignment of any object to some standard, and even raise the question whether there were any definite standards. The subject is, however, cleared so soon as we reach the lower multiples. Some standards were multiplied by 3, others by 4, others by 5. Hence we find clear separations arising, such as, for instance, the result between 500 and 600 grains; there are only 14 weights altogether in this 100 grains of range, while, on the other hand, there are 15 weights of the single value of 287 grains, amid a multitude of others larger and smaller. Thus the different kinds of multiples serve to delimit the ranges of the standards, and so classify the weights.

      The classification is also greatly helped by the different types of form which were favoured for different standards. Thus in the beqa (or Egyptian nub) series there are 50 square weights and 40 duck forms, whereas in the stater (or Attic standard) there are only 10 square stone weights and 23 duck weights. Hence by searching for varieties of form, which may be much more usual in one standard than in another contiguous to it, and mapping out the examples in a diagram, it is soon found what the limit is of one standard apart from the other. Of course it must be remembered that there was no fixed division between different standards; each had its variations, and they usually overlapped. If we had the same amount of irregularity now in our weights, there would be an overlap between the high pound weights and the low half kilogramme weights. All we can do is, by examination of all the material, to fix the points which divide best between the standards, and further to separate those which overlap, as far as possible, by evidence of forms and materials. All this only refers to a small percentage of the whole weights, for not more than two or three per cent are so divergent as to interfere, but it is needful to state exactly how they are here dealt with.

      In such discussion of treatment, we must always remember that we are only taking a fore-shortened view of many thousands of years of changes, and that most of the variations which we observe might be simplified into quite separate lines of descent, if we knew the historical variation. The usual position is like that of looking along a crowded street, and seeing only a solid barrier of traffic, instead of looking down upon it, and so tracing the crossing lines of each separate unit of the whole confusion. We shall endeavour here to use every indication of the historic changes; for, though far from complete, they are invaluable as disentangling our view of the subject.

      4. No attempt will be made here to deal with the whole of the immense subject of ancient metrology. This is only a publication of material, and in the necessary classification of it we may reach some solid foundations for the whole subject. The mass of fragmentary literary information, and results from other countries, will only be touched on where needful for the Egyptian material. Above all, nothing will be based on, or modified by, theories of connected standards; we only deal here with the material facts. The whole subject has been badly confused by the speculative metrologists, who have wasted much paper by theorizing. B

      OECKH

      , S

      OUTZO

      , A

      URES

      , H

      ULTSCH

      , L

      EHMANN

      -H

      AUPT

      and others have started theories which the vagueness of the subject would shelter, but which are quite incompatible with the historical facts in detail. Looking at the conditions of the ancient world, of a large number of communities each developing a strongly individual civilisation, the presumption is that there would be as many standards as there were languages. The vision of our reducing all to one original standard is as hopeless as the old idea of one primitive universal language.

      5. Some writers have preferred to pay attention only to the small minority of marked weights, as giving a greater certainty of meaning, and have ignored the general mass of material. That is, however, unsafe as marks often show what a weight was not, instead of what it was. The meaning of this is that the marks are often secondary, being added to a weight of one standard in order to show what was its equivalent on another standard. There is a parallel to this in modern times, when the coins of one country are countermarked with a fractional value of another currency in order to pass in a different system. In other cases only the secondary value is marked, and is shown to be secondary by its not being a likely number, and by the weight being a simple number of some other and commoner standard. Thus

      In all these, the simplicity of the multiple on the commoner standards, and the irregularity of the marked numbers on the rarer standards, shows clearly that the marking was secondary, as we might now mark 35 ounces on a kilogram weight.

      In other instances, marks have been altered. There seems to have been a standard of 1 of the nub or beqa; on one weight (4552) a 1 has been altered to III, that is reducing from 1 to beqa as the unit; in another instance (4299), II has been altered to III, reducing from 1 beqa to 1 beqa unit. On another weight (4455, 4507) the value has been marked more correctly; 50 was originally on it, giving 208.66 grains for the beqa, and this has been altered to 51 by a fresh stroke, giving 204.56 grains unit. From all these it is evident that any number marked, beyond the simplest likely multiples, really shows that the weight was not made for that amount, but that its value on a fresh system has been added upon it.

      The marks, when simple numbers, and undoubtedly referring to the original purpose of the weight, are often on a basis of a multiple of the standard. Thus a 5 qedet weight is marked I (Cairo 31289), and a 20 qedet (3673) marked IIII, and a 10 qedet marked II; also a 10 qedet (3260) is marked IIIII, and a 40 qedet (3343) marked ∩∩ (20); these show units of 5 qedet and of 2 qedet. The same is known from literary sources, where 5 deben has a name, shed.

      6. Another point to notice, respecting marks, is that generic marks, or names for a weight, must not be confounded with specific marks which distinguish a standard. There were many different standards named mina or shekel; so finding mina or shekel on a weight does not show to which standard it belongs. Similarly in Egypt deben, though usually accepted as = 10 qedet, or between 1400—1500 grains, was also applied to other units. There is a weight (2046) of about 10 normal deben on which is clearly written The 12 deben contained in the 2 weights of alabaster of Nefer-renpet. Here the named deben is obviously about 1156 grains, or a name for the 10 peyem weight. Similarly, there is, in Cairo, a weight of 300 deben (no. 31651) the unit of which is 10 darics of 124.9 grains; the multiple of 300 proves this, as the daric was multiplied by 60, while the Egyptian deben was decimal. Again, a weight (of Ampy) at Berlin marked 10 deben, gives a unit of 218.8 grains, the sela, or Phoenician standard. The circle or ring marked along with a numeral, on weights, has sometimes been supposed to mean one specific unit; but it is found on weights of six out of the eight known standards, only omitting the khoirīnē and the stater (Attic); the meaning of it is therefore simply

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