Description

In addition to the native system of deben and qedet, Egyptians also used Mesopotamian, Syrian, Greek and eventually Roman systems. Metal weights generally belong to Greco-Roman times and later. This small barrel-shaped weight probably belongs to the Byzantine period; it is marked with a fish shape and an ‘aleph.’ It does not seem to correspond to any specific system, though there may be other reasons for our inability to determine where an individual weight fits. As Petrie wrote: “Metal weights have almost always undergone alteration over the centuries, both losing and gaining weight. The loss is by wear, by solution of compounds, and, especially on bronze weights, by scaling of compounds; the gain is by the oxygen and carbonic acid locked up in the compounds, for nearly half the weight of green carbonate of copper is gain from the air.” Glass Stamps and Weights, British School of Archaeology, 1926, p.22.