The Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards

by William Ridgeway

Hinges these are of the mind[292],

I shall now proceed to set forth the method in which I conceive the various systems gradually rose and expanded. Let us bear in mind the fact already proved that gold was the first of all commodities to be weighed, and that consequently the standards employed for weighing that metal are the most archaic.

Egypt.

As has been previously remarked, we are not concerned with the long battle still raging between Assyriologists and Egyptologists as regards the respective claims of Egypt and Babylonia to the invention of measure and weight-standards. Boeckh himself seems instinctively to have felt this difficulty. For whilst he took Babylonia as the birthplace and home of all the ancient systems, nevertheless he held that contemporaneously there must have existed a connection between Egypt and Babylonia in remote antiquity, from which alone certain agreements and relations between the measures and weights of Egypt and Babylonia were capable of explanation[293]. The primitive measures of length are undoubtedly by the consensus of mankind based upon the parts of the body, such as the finger, the thumb, the foot, the arm, or both arms fully extended, standards common to Egyptians and Chaldaeans alike. Whilst at a later stage in the history of all civilized peoples efforts have been made to obtain more accuracy in these standards, which of necessity have produced certain local and national divergencies, yet inasmuch as all alike started from these standards which have been supplied by nature, it is obvious that many striking similarities and relations will always be found when any comparative study of different systems is attempted. The same principle of course holds good for weight-standards. According to our argument there was a common animal unit existing in Assyria and Egypt, which was represented by a metal unit, prevailing alike in both regions possibly with certain modifications. Egypt and Assyria starting with this common unit, each in their own fashion constructed their distinctive national systems, and we need not be surprised if at a later period under certain political conditions certain parts of the system of one of these regions are found exercising some influence upon that of the other.

We shall now briefly state the Egyptian weight-system. In the oldest Egyptian documents two weights continually occur, the Kat (Ket or Kite) and the Uten (Ten or Outen). Already in the third millennium before Christ the precious metals were in full use in Egypt, and copper likewise was employed in the purchase of articles of small value. Although very large amounts are recorded, yet they had devised no larger unit than those mentioned.

Fig. 22. Egyptian Five-Kat weight (Harris Collection).

To M. Chabas belongs the honour of being the first to clear up the relations between the uten and kat. The history of this discovery is an interesting proof of the fruitlessness of the purely empirical form of metrology which confines itself to the measuring of buildings, and weighing of ancient weight-pieces and coins, unless its path is made clear by means of the light derived from ancient records. The names uten and kat had been long known, as both of them recur frequently on the walls of the temple of Karnak (Temp. Thothmes III. 1700-1600 B.C.), and Egyptian weights were in the museums of Europe, but nevertheless “the exact relation of the one to the other remained unknown until it was fortunately disclosed by a passage in the Harris papyrus, which contains the annals of Rameses III. (circ. 1300 B.C.). From this it appears that the Uten contained ten Kats[294].” The uten therefore is the tenfold of the kat: Nissen[295] thinks that the latter was perhaps originally a gold weight (vielleicht ursprünglich ein Goldgewicht). These two units served for the weighing of gold, silver and copper, and there seems to be no difference noted in the documents between the units used for each purpose. In the lists of booty we read of such sums as 3144 utens of gold and 36692 utens of electrum. In lists of prices of commodities kats and utens of silver and copper are frequently mentioned. The weight of the kat has been fixed by Lepsius at 9·096 grammes (142·1 grains) and that of the uten at 90·959 grammes (1421·2 grains). But as it often happens in the case of coins that one well-preserved specimen is a better index of the normal standard than any that can be attained by taking the average of 100 bad specimens, so in the case of weights, one good specimen, made of some hard and imperishable substance, will give us a truer representation of the standard unit than the average of a large number of weights made of some less durable material, and carelessly executed, and meant merely for traffic in goods of little value. If such a weight as we have supposed is inscribed with its name, and we can also get some indication that it has all the authority that belongs to a weight used for official purposes, its value becomes still greater. Such a piece fortunately exists in the Harris Collection. It is a beautifully preserved serpentine weight, and weighs 698 grs. Troy. Allowing for its extremely slight loss we may suppose its original weight to have been about 700 grs. It bears the inscription, Five Kats of the Treasury of On. This gives 140 grains Troy as the weight of the kat[296]. This inscription also proves that the kat was the unit. For if as is commonly stated the uten is the unit, of which the kat is simply the one-tenth, we must naturally expect to find this weight described as ½ uten rather than as 5 kats. This is confirmed by a statement of the grammarian Horapollo (or Horus, who although writing about 400 A.D. nevertheless preserves much valuable information) that “with the Egyptians the didrachm is the monad. But the monad is the source of production of all numeration.” As two drachms were 135 grs., it is evident that it is the kat of 140 grs., and not the uten of 1400 grs. which the Egyptians themselves regarded as the basis of their system[297]. Mr Flinders Petrie from the weights of 158 specimens found in the ruins of Naucratis, which range from 136.8 grains to 153 grains, concludes that there were two distinct kat units, one weighing 142 grs., the other 152 grs. But until some literary evidence is forthcoming for the existence of this second and heavier kat[298], we must suspend our judgment. It is perfectly possible that such existed, being used for some purpose different from that of the kat of 140 grains. For instance it might have been used specially for copper owing to a desire to make certain adjustments between silver and copper, but this is of course mere conjecture.

It is worth while here to see the method by which those who believe in a scientific system of Egyptian origin obtain their unit.