was natural that the weight of the silver unit was increased in order to preserve the relation in value between one gold unit, and ten silver units. Lastly we may point out that at no place on the coast of Phoenicia or Asia Minor, the region especially in contact with the Phoenicians, do we find gold pieces struck on the heavy shekel. Electrum certainly was coined on this foot; but of this we shall be able to give a satisfactory explanation. We have (with the exception of some Lydian pieces) to go as far north as Thasos or Thrace before we find a gold coin of such a nature, which is of course nothing more than a double stater.
The Phoenician gold mina was probably like the Hebrew, which was most likely borrowed from it, the fifty-fold of the heavy shekel, 100 gold shekels and 100 silver shekels constituting a maneh, as amongst the Hebrews in the time of Solomon. But we can conjecture with some probability that at an earlier stage they weighed their gold and silver according to the old common ox-unit, which we found in use among the Hebrews under the name of the Holy Shekel or shekel of the Sanctuary. No doubt the mina for gold always contained 100 light or 50 heavy shekels, and when their own peculiar shekel of 220 grs. came into vogue for silver, 50 such shekels made a mina. Finally, there can be little doubt that 60 minas invariably went to the talent.