[301] The large copper coins of the Ptolemies of 1450-1350 grs. Troy (the flans of which were turned in a lathe) were almost certainly struck on the native uten.
[302] This weight (in my own possession) said to have come from India, and almost perfect, weighed 4·29 grammes.
[303] III. 89, τοῖσι μὲν αὐτῶν ἀργύριον ἀπαγινέουσι εἴρητο Βαβυλώνιον σταθμὸν τάλαντον ἀπαγινέειν, τοῖσι δὲ χρυσίον ἀπαγινέουσι Εὐβοϊκόν· τὸ δὲ Βαβυλώνιον τάλαντον δύναται Εὐβοΐδας ἑβδομήκοντα μνέας.
[304] If, as is held by some of the best critics, this is a late passage, there is an a fortiori argument against the early use of the mina.
[305] Is it possible that the so-called Ducks are only degraded forms of bull-head weights? The ears and horns were dropped as being inconvenient (see bull-head weight, [p. 283]), and at a later time when the tradition of their origin had been lost, the shapeless lump was adorned with a bird’s head to serve as a handle. All the large weights from Nineveh are without any head; and it is but very rarely even on the small haematite weights that the duck’s head is found fully formed.
[306] As no better selection of these weights could be made than that of Mr Head, I have followed his description. Cf. R. S. Poole, in Madden’s Jewish Coinage, p. 261 seqq., and the Report of the Warden of the Standards, 1874-5, for a full account of these weights.
[307] The Manah is of course the Meneh so familiar from Belshazzar’s vision, mene, mene tekel upharsin (Daniel v. 25), which the best scholars follow M. Clermont-Ganneau (Journal Asiatique, 1886) in interpreting as a mina, a mina, a shekel, and the parts of a shekel.
[308] Prof. Sayce (Academy, Dec. 19th, 1891) publishes a weight from Babylonia inscribed “One maneh standard weight, the property of Merodach-sar-ilani, a duplicate of the weight which Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, the son of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, made in exact accordance with the weight [prescribed] by the deified Dungi, a former king.” This confirms my contention that the mina is prior in date to the talent.
[309] Cf. Plautus, Persa.
[310] Brandis, 20-38.