Of smaller coins—
1 Shiblon was equal to half a Senine or Senum.
1 Shiblum was equal to a quarter of a Senine or Senum.
1 Leah was equal to an eighth of a Senine or Senum.
While an Antion of gold was equal to three Shublons.
Though not directly so stated, we judge from the context that the Shiblon, the Shiblum and the Leah were silver coins.
The names of these coins seem to be identical with, or derived from those of familiar persons or places. Thus we have a Leah, a Shiblon, [13] and an Amnor, [14] all names of persons. Also an Antion, which word is found in Antionah [15] and Antionum, [16] a Shiblum which differs from Shiblom [17] only in one letter, and a Shublon from Shiblon, [18] and a Limnah from Limhah, [19] to the same extent.
This custom of naming coins after well-known or distinguished persons is a practice not confined to the Nephites. Other nations have done the same; as for instance, in France a twenty-franc gold piece is called a Napoleon.
One little item that in itself may appear trivial is not without its weight in the consideration of the minor or incidental evidences of the truth of the Book of Mormon. A measure of barley is especially mentioned as the unit of value on which the monetary system, or the value of the coins of the Nephites was based. One senine was worth one measure of barley, and its multiples were, of course, multiples of this measure of barley, but we have no information as to what the contents of this measure may have been. [20]
Now the old English unit of measurement was a barley-corn, or grain of barley. Three barley-corns make one inch, is the way the table commenced.
Believing, as the Latter-day Saints do, that the Nephites were a branch of the house of Israel, and also that the races whence the English have most largely sprung had much of the blood of Israel in their composition, the agreement of these two units on the grain so frequently mentioned in the Bible (as with the Nephites all grain seems to have been of equal price) is not without its value in either argument. The fact, also, that the Nephites made grain the standard of value shows how highly agriculture must have been esteemed among that people.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] A son of Alma the younger.