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

weight they will exactly make up the mina of 505 gram. Neither can this mina be the Babylonian silver mina of 50 shekels of 172 grains (11·2 gram.) each. For the Babylonian silver mina consists of 50 shekels of 11·2 gram., whereas the mina of 505 gram, would give 50 shekels of only 10·1 gram. each. The obvious conclusion is that this mina of 505 gram. is neither the gold nor the silver standard. It is a mina composed of 60 shekels of the weight of the gold unit (Daric or ox-unit). And its talent was composed when the system was completed, of 60 minae, as was the case with all other talents. From the weights just described it may reasonably be assumed that both the heavy and light systems were employed contemporaneously in the Assyrio-Babylonian empire. Some have suggested that whilst the light system was employed in Babylon, its double, or the heavy one, was employed in the northern part of the empire. But the fact that it is on the weights of the latter standard that we find the double legends, the second being in Aramaic characters, seems to point irresistibly to the conclusion that the heavy standard (no matter what it may have been employed for) was especially used in Syria.