DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3236#0155
90
TELL DEFENNEH.
may be called the monetary standard, the
Darics all belonging to this group. The Attic
entirely omits the earliest monetary variety of
65-2, and begins with the group of 66*3 ; but
this and the next group of 67'3 are well de-
fined; the last group extends higher at
Defenneh, and this may be accounted for by
the great use made here of £rd and iths of the
kat, which would incline the Greeks to stretch
the Attic drachma to meet it by the oboli. In
fact it is very possible that the low group of
$rd and ■J-th kats may have been intended as
amphibious weights, serving for these fractions
of the kat or for tetroboli and dioboli of the
Attic system. In the Egyptian kat curves,
which are the most perfect owing to the large
number of examples, we have the most com-
plete accordance. Not a wave of the Naukratis
curve is lost in the Defenneh curve ; two cases
at 143 and 150 are smudged and reduced to
mere humps, but still the same cause is plainly
at work which produced the stable types of the
Naukratis curves, which appeared in 1885, and
in both years together.
87. Seeing then that the archetype varieties
of Naukratis in the sixth century b.c. and on-
ward are identical with the archetypes of Defen-
neh, on the opposite side of the Delta but at
the same time, there comes the still broader
question, are these archetypes common to the
whole of Egyptian weights ? Unfortunately
existing collections are but scanty in compari-
son with the largo numbers we have been
dealing with; and we are in almost entire
ignorance of the site or age of a single example.
Still, taking the whole of existing collections
(including all published and half as much again
of unpublished examples) without proper cor-
rections for loss or changes, we have the curve
shown in dotted line in the top diagram of pi. 1.
Here we see the Naukratis curve of the kat,
the Defenneh curve, and the curve of all pre-
vious collections, given on the same scale.
Here, after a little confusion of scanty exam-
ples, there is, out of half-a-dozen waves and
intermediate dips from 138 to 152 grains range,
but one turn not fully shown in the general
collection as in the Naukratite. The dip at 139
grains is filled up, but only two examples sur-
plus here suffices to extinguish it. The
correspondence is most remarkable; and the
comparison of these three curves of the same
nature, but from different sources, establishes
more firmly than any reasoning could the
decisive importance of even small turns in such
curves of distribution, whenever the number
of examples suffices to avoid casual errors.
The numbers are never large in the general
collections curve, never over 8, and usually
but 3 or 4 in each grain space ; and yet a change
of omitting or including a couple more weights
at almost any point would impair the resem-
blance between it and the Naukratite curve.
As many of these weights come from Thebes
and Upper Egypt, we are clear of the suspicion
that they were all derived from Naukratis to
begin with, though that is probably the case
with some of them.
88. "We are then face to face Avith the con-
clusion that for the later periods of Egyptian
history there were different families of kat
weights, perpetuated and transmitted without
their archetypes ever being quite masked in the
process, and that these families were gene-
rally diffused in somewhat similar proportions
throughout the country. There is a close
literary parallel to this in the history of manu-
scripts; they can be traced into families of
readings, any given MS. can be assigned to its
general group, and yet often cases occur which
are intermediate, just like those weights in the
dips between the groups. These families of
MSS. have come down from certain archetypes :
such as, in the case of the New Testament, the
Byzantine, the Alexandrine, and the Western
families ; and the versions, Italic, Syriac, Coptic,
TELL DEFENNEH.
may be called the monetary standard, the
Darics all belonging to this group. The Attic
entirely omits the earliest monetary variety of
65-2, and begins with the group of 66*3 ; but
this and the next group of 67'3 are well de-
fined; the last group extends higher at
Defenneh, and this may be accounted for by
the great use made here of £rd and iths of the
kat, which would incline the Greeks to stretch
the Attic drachma to meet it by the oboli. In
fact it is very possible that the low group of
$rd and ■J-th kats may have been intended as
amphibious weights, serving for these fractions
of the kat or for tetroboli and dioboli of the
Attic system. In the Egyptian kat curves,
which are the most perfect owing to the large
number of examples, we have the most com-
plete accordance. Not a wave of the Naukratis
curve is lost in the Defenneh curve ; two cases
at 143 and 150 are smudged and reduced to
mere humps, but still the same cause is plainly
at work which produced the stable types of the
Naukratis curves, which appeared in 1885, and
in both years together.
87. Seeing then that the archetype varieties
of Naukratis in the sixth century b.c. and on-
ward are identical with the archetypes of Defen-
neh, on the opposite side of the Delta but at
the same time, there comes the still broader
question, are these archetypes common to the
whole of Egyptian weights ? Unfortunately
existing collections are but scanty in compari-
son with the largo numbers we have been
dealing with; and we are in almost entire
ignorance of the site or age of a single example.
Still, taking the whole of existing collections
(including all published and half as much again
of unpublished examples) without proper cor-
rections for loss or changes, we have the curve
shown in dotted line in the top diagram of pi. 1.
Here we see the Naukratis curve of the kat,
the Defenneh curve, and the curve of all pre-
vious collections, given on the same scale.
Here, after a little confusion of scanty exam-
ples, there is, out of half-a-dozen waves and
intermediate dips from 138 to 152 grains range,
but one turn not fully shown in the general
collection as in the Naukratite. The dip at 139
grains is filled up, but only two examples sur-
plus here suffices to extinguish it. The
correspondence is most remarkable; and the
comparison of these three curves of the same
nature, but from different sources, establishes
more firmly than any reasoning could the
decisive importance of even small turns in such
curves of distribution, whenever the number
of examples suffices to avoid casual errors.
The numbers are never large in the general
collections curve, never over 8, and usually
but 3 or 4 in each grain space ; and yet a change
of omitting or including a couple more weights
at almost any point would impair the resem-
blance between it and the Naukratite curve.
As many of these weights come from Thebes
and Upper Egypt, we are clear of the suspicion
that they were all derived from Naukratis to
begin with, though that is probably the case
with some of them.
88. "We are then face to face Avith the con-
clusion that for the later periods of Egyptian
history there were different families of kat
weights, perpetuated and transmitted without
their archetypes ever being quite masked in the
process, and that these families were gene-
rally diffused in somewhat similar proportions
throughout the country. There is a close
literary parallel to this in the history of manu-
scripts; they can be traced into families of
readings, any given MS. can be assigned to its
general group, and yet often cases occur which
are intermediate, just like those weights in the
dips between the groups. These families of
MSS. have come down from certain archetypes :
such as, in the case of the New Testament, the
Byzantine, the Alexandrine, and the Western
families ; and the versions, Italic, Syriac, Coptic,