Asiatics and Egyptians has had its origin. But even within this sacred precinct of à priori metrology the irrepressible grain of corn springs up vigorously, although almost choked by the abundant crop of tares which have been sown around it. If we find that a Semitic people, who were the ancients of the earth before Pelops passed from Asia into Greece, or Romulus had founded his Asylum, employed the wheat grain as their lowest weight unit, we may then well argue that ages before the birth of the Prophet and the Arab conquest of Egypt and Syria, the Semitic folks employed grains of corn to form their lowest weight unit.
M. Aurès16, a well-known Assyrian metrologist, has recently set forth the Assyrian system in its latest and most advanced stage. Following the veteran Assyriologist, M. Oppert, he finds that the Assyrians used a denomination lower than the obol. In the Museum of the Louvre there is a small Assyrian weight of the “duck” kind, which bears on its base the Assyrian character of 22 grains ½. The ideogram translated grain is evidently meant to represent some kind of corn with a rounded end. The weight of this object is ·95 gram (14⁶⁄₇ grains Troy). The weight is a ¾ obol, and therefore 30 grains went to the obol. This is the obol of the heavy Assyrian system, of which we shall presently speak. For the sake of clearness, I take M. Aurès’ table.
| 30 | grains | = | 1 obol. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | obols | = | 1 drachm. |
| 2 | drachms | = | 1 shekel. |
| 10 | drachms | = | 1 “stone.” |
| 60 | ” | = | 1 light mina. |
For our present purpose it is quite sufficient to call attention to the fact that this grain which forms the lowest unit of the Assyrian scale weighs ·042 gram (·95 ÷ 22·5) which is a very close approximation to the weight of the wheat-grain (·047). Making allowance for some loss which the weight may have sustained, it seems impossible to doubt that we have