CHAPTER X. The Systems of Egypt, Babylon, and Palestine.

In lists of prices of commodities kats and utens of silver and copper are frequently mentioned. The weight of the kat has been fixed by Lepsius at 9·096 grammes (142·1 grains) and that of the uten at 90·959 grammes (1421·2 grains). But as it often happens in the case of coins that one well-preserved specimen is a better index of the normal standard than any that can be attained by taking the average of 100 bad specimens, so in the case of weights, one good specimen, made of some hard and imperishable substance, will give us a truer representation of the standard unit than the average of a large number of weights made of some less durable material, and carelessly executed, and meant merely for traffic in goods of little value. If such a weight as we have supposed is inscribed with its name, and we can also get some indication that it has all the authority that belongs to a weight used for official purposes, its value becomes still greater. Such a piece fortunately exists in the Harris Collection. It is a beautifully preserved serpentine weight, and weighs 698 grs. Troy. Allowing for its extremely slight loss we may suppose its original weight to have been about 700 grs. It bears the inscription, Five Kats of the Treasury of On. This gives 140 grains Troy as the weight of the kat⁴. This inscription also proves that the kat was the unit. For if as is commonly stated the uten is the unit, of which the kat is simply the one-tenth, we must naturally expect to find this weight described as ½ uten rather than as 5 kats. This is confirmed by a statement of the grammarian Horapollo (or Horus, who although writing about 400 A.D. nevertheless preserves much valuable information) that “with the Egyptians the didrachm is the monad. But the monad is the source of production of all numeration.” As two drachms were 135 grs., it is evident that it is the kat of 140 grs., and not the uten of 1400 grs. which the Egyptians themselves regarded as the basis of their system⁵. Mr Flinders Petrie from the weights of 158 specimens found in the ruins of Naucratis, which range from 136.8 grains to 153 grains, concludes that there were two distinct kat units, one weighing 142 grs., the other 152 grs. But until some literary evidence is forthcoming for the existence