Hill, George Francis: A handbook of Greek and Roman coins (London: Macmillan, 1899)

28

GREEK AND ROMAN COINS

[bk. I

Admitting the existence of this developed system, we find
that two countries, Babylonia and Egypt, dispute the claim
of its origination. As, again, this question belongs to a stage
prior to the history of our subject, it may be passed by. But,
since coinage originated in Asia Minor and not in Egypt,
it was the weight-system of Babylonia and its derivatives
to which the early coin-weights belonged, and this system,
therefore, so far as it concerns the coin-standards, must now be
described \

§ 2. Determination of Early Weight-Standards.

The unit of weight was the shekel (σϊγλορ or σίκλος), This
was of the manah or mina (μνά), and this again of the


Fig. 6.—Babylonian Bronze Weight of 5 manahs.
highest weight of all, the talent (τάλαντον or load ; the Semitic
name was kikkar).
1 I have already referred to the summary of the evidence as to the
origin of the Greek coin-standards given by Mr. Head in his Historia
Numorum. Since the publication of that work, the study has received a new
development through the researches of Herr Lehmann (op. cit.). The
latest contribution to the subject is by F. Hultsch, Die Gewichte des Alterthums
nach ihrem Zusammenhange dargestellt (Abhandl. der Kon. Sachs. Ges. d.
Wiss. xviii. no. ii. Leipzig, 1898).