of their being employed for gold (Flinders Petrie, op. cit.). But even granting that the Egyptians used the same standard as the Aeginetans for silver, it does not at all follow that there has been borrowing on either side. On the principle laid down below it will be seen that it is quite possible for two peoples to evolve a like silver standard perfectly independently of each other. But the real difficulty which besets the theory of an Egyptian origin is that if the Aeginetans were to borrow their standard from abroad, the people from whom they would in all probability have obtained it were not the Egyptians, with whom they had but slight relations directly, but rather the Phoenicians, with whom they were in constant intercourse.
It cannot be proved that at any time the Egyptians were a maritime people trading round the coasts of Greece. There was undoubtedly intercourse between Greece and Egypt, but that intercourse was through the medium of the shipmen of Tyre. Why should then the Aeginetans adopt a standard from abroad which differed from that of the Phoenicians with whom they were in constant commercial relations? Again, if there is any connection between the importation of weight standards and the commencement of coinage, it may be urged that whilst it was from the Phoenicians the Aeginetans learned the art which had been originated in Asia Minor, or at all events from the Greeks of the coast of Asia Minor who coined electrum money on the Phoenician standard, we ought naturally to find the Greeks of Aegina using this standard for their earliest coinage rather than a standard borrowed from Egypt, which most certainly was very backward in developing the art of coining, seeing that it was not until after the conquest of that country by Alexander the Great (B.C. 330) that money was there struck for the first time27.
Passing by for the moment Mr Head’s view, let us next deal with that of Dr Hultsch. This theory has the great merit of granting that the Greeks were capable of evolving a silver standard for themselves from a