DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.45277#0032
xxviii
INTRODUCTION.
Gold and
silver bar-
money.
Egypt.
either metal having its value more or less accurately defined in relation to
the other. Thus Abraham is said to have been ‘ very rich in cattle, in silver,
and in gold’ (Gen. xiii. 2, xxiv. 35), and in the account of his purchase of the
cave of Machpelah (Gen. xxiii. 16) it is stated that ‘Abraham weighed to
Ephron the silver which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth,
four hundred shekels of silver current with the merchant.’
That gold was plentiful in ‘Ur of the Chaldees’ is proved also by the
remains of the temples in that place and at the neighbouring Abu Shahrein
excavated by Mr. Taylor in 1833. These temples, which date from a period
as early as Abraham’s time, appear to have been richly decorated with gold
and polished stones, with the fragments of which the ground about the base-
ment of the second storey was found to be strewn.
As there are no auriferous rocks or streams in Chaldaea, we must infer
that the old Chaldaean traders, of whom Isaiah says (xliii. 14) that ‘their
cry was in their ships,’ must have imported their gold from India by way
of the Persian gulf in the ships of Ur frequently mentioned in cuneiform
inscriptions.
But though gold and silver were from the earliest times used as measures
of value in the East, not a single piece of coined money has come down to
us of these remote ages, nor is there any mention of coined money in the
Old Testament before Persian times. The gold and silver ‘ current with the
merchant ’ was always weighed in the balance; thus we read that David gave
to Oman for his threshing-floor 600 shekels of gold by weight (1 Chron.
xxi. 23).
It is nevertheless probable that the balance was not called into operation for
every small transaction, but that little bars of silver and of gold of fixed weight,
but without any official mark, (and therefore not coins), were often counted
out by tale, larger amounts being always weighed. Such small bars or
wedges of gold and silver served the purposes of a currency and were
regulated by the weight of the shekel or the mina.
This leads us briefly to examine the standards of weight used for the
precious metals in the East before the invention of money.
§ 2. The Metric Systems of the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Assyrians.
The evidence afforded by ancient writers on the subject of weights and
coinage is, in great part, untrustworthy, and would often be unintelligible
were it not for the light which has been shed upon it by the gold and silver
coins, and bronze, leaden, and stone weights which have been fortunately
preserved down to our own times. It will be safer therefore to confine
ourselves to the direct evidence afforded by the monuments.
Egypt, the oldest civilized country of the ancient world, first claims our
attention, but as the weight-system which prevailed in the Nile valley does
not appear to have exercised any traceable influence upon the early coinage
of the Greeks, the metrology of Egypt need not detain us long. There
are two names of Egyptian weights which are frequently mentioned on
the walls of the temple of Karnak (temp. Thothmes III, 1700-1600 b. C.),
the Uten and the Kat, but the exact relation of the one to the other was
INTRODUCTION.
Gold and
silver bar-
money.
Egypt.
either metal having its value more or less accurately defined in relation to
the other. Thus Abraham is said to have been ‘ very rich in cattle, in silver,
and in gold’ (Gen. xiii. 2, xxiv. 35), and in the account of his purchase of the
cave of Machpelah (Gen. xxiii. 16) it is stated that ‘Abraham weighed to
Ephron the silver which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth,
four hundred shekels of silver current with the merchant.’
That gold was plentiful in ‘Ur of the Chaldees’ is proved also by the
remains of the temples in that place and at the neighbouring Abu Shahrein
excavated by Mr. Taylor in 1833. These temples, which date from a period
as early as Abraham’s time, appear to have been richly decorated with gold
and polished stones, with the fragments of which the ground about the base-
ment of the second storey was found to be strewn.
As there are no auriferous rocks or streams in Chaldaea, we must infer
that the old Chaldaean traders, of whom Isaiah says (xliii. 14) that ‘their
cry was in their ships,’ must have imported their gold from India by way
of the Persian gulf in the ships of Ur frequently mentioned in cuneiform
inscriptions.
But though gold and silver were from the earliest times used as measures
of value in the East, not a single piece of coined money has come down to
us of these remote ages, nor is there any mention of coined money in the
Old Testament before Persian times. The gold and silver ‘ current with the
merchant ’ was always weighed in the balance; thus we read that David gave
to Oman for his threshing-floor 600 shekels of gold by weight (1 Chron.
xxi. 23).
It is nevertheless probable that the balance was not called into operation for
every small transaction, but that little bars of silver and of gold of fixed weight,
but without any official mark, (and therefore not coins), were often counted
out by tale, larger amounts being always weighed. Such small bars or
wedges of gold and silver served the purposes of a currency and were
regulated by the weight of the shekel or the mina.
This leads us briefly to examine the standards of weight used for the
precious metals in the East before the invention of money.
§ 2. The Metric Systems of the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Assyrians.
The evidence afforded by ancient writers on the subject of weights and
coinage is, in great part, untrustworthy, and would often be unintelligible
were it not for the light which has been shed upon it by the gold and silver
coins, and bronze, leaden, and stone weights which have been fortunately
preserved down to our own times. It will be safer therefore to confine
ourselves to the direct evidence afforded by the monuments.
Egypt, the oldest civilized country of the ancient world, first claims our
attention, but as the weight-system which prevailed in the Nile valley does
not appear to have exercised any traceable influence upon the early coinage
of the Greeks, the metrology of Egypt need not detain us long. There
are two names of Egyptian weights which are frequently mentioned on
the walls of the temple of Karnak (temp. Thothmes III, 1700-1600 b. C.),
the Uten and the Kat, but the exact relation of the one to the other was