part of the theory is true, that they started from a high unit?
Now for the evidence of the monuments themselves.
The weights found by Sir A. H. Layard fall into two classes, (a) those in the shape of Lions, which are made of bronze, and (b) those in the shape of Ducks, which are of stone12. “The bronze Lions are for the most part furnished with a handle on the back of the animal, and are generally inscribed with a double legend, one in cuneiform characters, the other in Aramaic.” The Ducks which are inscribed have a legend in cuneiform characters only. These inscriptions contain not only the name of the king of Babylon or Assyria in whose reign they were made, but likewise a statement of the number of the minas or fractions of a mina which each weight originally represented. As these weights were found in the ancient palace some have thought that they were possibly official standards of weight deposited from time to time in the royal palaces13. This seems at least to be implied by the inscriptions on some of them, such as those of the largest and most ancient of the Duck weights, which run as follows: