CHAPTER VI. The Gold Unit everywhere the value of a Cow.

The wall paintings which still survive the inroads of time, and the still ruder hands of Arabs or tourist, constantly exhibit representations of the payment of tribute. Again and again we see the tribute money in the form of rings being weighed in scales, “on which solid images of animals in stone or brass in the shape of recumbent oxen took the place of our weights⁴.” Erman gives several representations of such weighing scenes (pp. 611-12), and infers from the fact that the weigh-master and his scales are always present at such payments, that the scales were the ordinary medium of such payments. Mere pictures however do not tell us anything about the weight of the rings therein pourtrayed. Fortunately however we have examples of such rings. Brandis⁵, who was the first to seek for the unit on which these rings were fashioned, thought that they followed the heavy shekel (260 grs.), the double of our common unit. On the other hand F. Lenormant⁶ thinks that they are