| 1 | Shekel | = | 130 grs. (8·4 gram.). |
| 60 | Shekels | = | 1 Manah = 7800 grs. |
| 60 | Manahs | = | 1 Talent = 468000 grs. |
Let us now examine for a moment the current explanation of the origin and inter-relations of these standards and we shall find that they all start at the wrong end, assuming as earliest that which can be proved to be later, and deducing what are really the earliest stages from those which were in fact the historical outcome of the others.
“The proficiency of the Chaldaeans in the cognate sciences of Arithmetic and Astronomy is well known[310],[311]. The broad and monotonous plains of lower Mesopotamia had nothing to attract the eye, and impelled their inhabitants to fix their attention upon the overarching skies studded with stars that shone with exceptional clearness and lustre in the dry pellucid atmosphere of that region. There were no dark mountains looming in the distance to hinder the eye from watching down to the very horizon the heavenly bodies in their periodic movements. Thus as Geometry may be regarded as the special offspring of the Egyptian mind, so Astronomy and Astrology were the children of Babylonia. The results of their astronomical observations were duly recorded on clay tablets in the cuneiform characters, and these tablets were then baked hard, and stored up in the great libraries in their chief cities. It is recorded that when Alexander the Great captured Babylon, he obtained and forwarded to his tutor Aristotle a series of astronomical records extending back as far as the year B.C. 2234, according to our reckoning.”
Certain investigations into these tablets, primarily suggested by a fragment of Berosus which described the method of dividing time employed by the Babylonians, have led scholars to conclude that upon these observations “rests the entire structure of the metric system of the Babylonians[312].”
Thus was obtained the famous Babylonian Sexagesimal system. Although the French metric system of modern days has returned to the decimal system, which was the first employed by primitive men, being probably suggested to them by those natural counters, the fingers, the sexagesimal had a considerable superiority over the older decimal system (which the Egyptians had clung to) for certain practical purposes, as the number on which it was based could be resolved into fractions far more conveniently than the number 10. Dr Hultsch (Metrologie², p. 393) arrives at the Babylonian weight-unit thus: the Babylonian maris is equal to one-fifth of the cube of the Royal Babylonian Ell, which is itself obtained from the sun’s apparent diameter. The weight in water corresponding to this measure of capacity gave the light Royal Babylonian Talent; this Talent was divided into 60 Minae, and each Mina into sixty parts or Shekels. Their gold Talent was derived from the sixtieth of this Royal Mina, with the modification that now fifty sixtieths of the Royal Mina made a Mina of gold and sixty Minae made a Talent[313].
It seems strange that the framers of this theory did not consider that just as undoubtedly the Chaldaeans must have reckoned their time by the primitive methods of sunrise, noon and sunset, “full market,” or ox-loosing time for centuries before they arrived at their scientific division of time, and just as the Chaldaean artificer employed his fingers or palm, or span or foot, as a measure of length ages before the Royal Cubit was equated to the sun’s apparent diameter, so in all probability they employed as measures of capacity, gourds or eggshells (as did the Hebrews) and for weights the seeds of plants.
But since, after what we have already seen, it is perfectly clear that the first of articles to be weighed is gold, and that the unit of weight is consequently small, we at once join issue with several points in the theory of Brandis and his school. First they start with the Talent as the unit, and only arrive at the shekel (the weight par excellence) by a twofold process of subdivision; secondly, it is assumed that the Royal Talent which we have had reason to believe was a purely commercial Talent, seeing that it was employed neither for gold or silver, was the first to be invented, and that it was only at a later stage that the mina and talent specially employed for gold were developed, not out of the primal unit obtained originally from the one-fifth of the cube of the maris, but from the sixtieth of the mina of that Royal Talent; thirdly one asks in wonder why did the Chaldaeans, who only achieved their famous Sexagesimal system after gazing at the stars through unnumbered generations, abandon this precious discovery the very moment they set about the construction of a weight-unit for gold, for instead of taking one-sixth of the cube of the maris, they are represented as following their old decimal system with invincible obstinacy by taking one-fifth of the maris as their point of departure; lastly, it is astonishing that the Chaldaeans did not employ their new discovery in the weighing of the precious metals, the thing which above all others ought to have called for the most scientific accuracy.
The fact is, that just as children find some difficulty in realising that their parents were ever children, so when we stand in the presence of the remains of the great cities of Egypt and Babylonia, those ancients of the earth, we are too prone to forget that Thebes, Babylon or Nineveh had ever their day of small things. The familiar tale of Romulus and Remus with their band of outlaws dwelling in their hovels beside the Tiber has kept people in mind that “Rome was not built in a day.” If we can but just approach the question of the first beginnings of Egyptian or Chaldaean civilization with the same idea, it will be far easier to project ourselves into the past of those great races, and thus to realize far better the conditions under which they grew and lived.