The History of Antiquity (Vol. 1-6). Duncker Max

water was allowed to run into a second small jar, till the orb of the sun was completely visible; then it ran into a third and larger jar, till the sun was again seen on the horizon on the following morning. They concluded that the diameter of the sun must stand in the same proportion to the cycle it passed through as the water in the small jar stood to the water in the large one. Hence they found that the diameter of the sun was contained 720 times in its course, and this diameter they fixed at ⅓0 of an hour.[394] The observation that an active foot-courier could accomplish a certain distance in the thirtieth part of an equinoctial hour, and thirty times as much in the whole hour, supplied the Chaldæans with a longitudinal measurement on the same basis. The measure of the hour was the parasang (¾ of a geographical mile), and the thirtieth part of the parasang was the stadium. Till we obtain help from the inscriptions we must remain acquainted only with the Persian name of the first measure and the Greek name of the second. At the equator the sun was supposed in every hour to traverse a distance of thirty stadia. On this system also the Chaldæans fixed the length of their cubit. The stadium was divided into 360 cubits, and the sixth part of the stadium, or plethron, into sixty cubits, and the foot was fixed at ⅗ of this cubit. Consequently the Babylonian cubit was fixed at twenty-one inches of our measure (525 millimeters).[395]

From this division of the sphere the Babylonians, though aided by very simple instruments, the polus and gnomon,[396] arrived at very exact astronomical observations and results. They discovered a period of 223 months, within which all eclipses of the moon occurred in a similar number and equal extent. By means of this period they fixed the average length of the synodic and periodic month with such accuracy that our astronomers here found the first to be too large by four seconds only, and the last by one second. Their observations of ten lunar eclipses, and three conjunctions of planets and fixed stars, have come down to us. The oldest of these observations is that of a lunar eclipse of the year 721 B.C., which took place "a good hour after midnight." The second took place in 720 B.C., "about midnight;" the third in the same year "after the rising of the moon." In these observations also our astronomers have found but little to correct.

As the Chaldæans brought their measures of the sphere, of time and length into correlation, so also they attempted to preserve the same relation in their cubic measures and weights. For their weights and cubic measures the division of the units into sixtieths (minæ, i.e. parts) was retained. The quadrantal, or Maris, contained one Babylonian cubic foot, and the sixtieth part of this was the Log. The weight in water of a Babylonian cubic foot was, according to the statistics of our physicists, about sixty-six pounds (32,721 kilogrammes), but the Chaldæans reckoned it at only 60⅗ pounds (30,300 kilogrammes).[397]

The weight of the cubic measure was also the standard for imperial weight in Babylonia. The oldest weight which we know dates from the time of Ilgi, king of Ur. The stone, which in shape is not unlike a duck, has the inscription: "Ten minæ of Ilgi."[398] There was a heavy talent (Kikkar, i.e. "orb") arranged to weigh twice as much as the quadrantal. Hence it weighed 121⅕ pounds (60,600 kils.), and the sixtieth, or mina, weighed over two pounds. The light talent weighed one quadrantal, according to the estimate of the Chaldæans, i.e. 60⅗ pounds, and the mina was a little heavier than a pound of our weight. But in weighing the precious metals, the Chaldæans used units, which differed from the imperial weights in use for all other purposes. They calculated by little circular pieces, or rings, or bars (tongues) of silver and gold, and the smallest of these was equivalent to the shekel, or sixtieth part of the mina of the heavy talent. These shekels were the commonest and most indispensable measure of value. It was found easier to reckon by units of 3,000 shekels, than by units of 3,600. And so it came about that the mina contained fifty shekels instead of sixty, and the talent 3,000 shekels instead of 3,600. The three thousand shekels as a whole, no longer weighed 121⅕ pounds, but only 101 pounds, and the mina, or sixtieth part, instead of weighing fully two pounds, weighed only about 1⅗ pounds.[399]

This weight, or the half of it (50½ pounds), was retained for the heavy and light gold talent. In the weight of silver trade caused a further deviation. It was necessary to exchange gold and silver, and in the East in antiquity the value of gold and silver was estimated at 13 : 1, or more accurately 13⅓ : 1.[400] By making the silver shekel (i.e. the fiftieth part of the silver mina), which corresponded to the weight of the light gold talent, a little heavier, a silver coin was obtained which stood to the fiftieth of the light gold mina, nearly in the ratio of 10 : 1. Ten silver shekels of this weight could therefore without any further trouble be exchanged for the fiftieth of the gold mina, or gold shekel of the light gold talent. Hence arose a silver talent of 67⅓ pounds (33,660 kil.), a silver mina of 1¹⁄₁₀ pound, and a silver shekel of about eleven milligrammes.

      FOOTNOTES:

      [359] Diod. 2, 30.

      [360] Nicol. Damasc. Fragm. 9, 10, ed. Müller.

      [361] Pindari Fragm. adesp. 83, ed. Bergk.

[362] Schrader, "Assyr.-babyl. Keilschriften," s. 123; "Keilschriften und Alt. Test." s. 280.

[363] G. Rawlinson, "Five Monarchies," p. 130.

[364] 2 Kings xvii. 31.

[365] Amos v. 26.

[366] Eberhard Schrader, "Theologg. Studien und Kritiken," 1874, 2, 324 ff.

[367] Schrader, "Keilschriften und Alt. Test." s. 167, 272; "Assyr.-babyl. Keilschriften," s. 88, 129, 140.

[368] Ménant, "Babylone," pp. 201–203.

[369] Munter, "Religion der Babylonier," s. 28.

[370] Herod. 1, 199.

[371] Baruch, vi. 42, 43 (Ep. Jerem.); cf. Genesis xxxviii. 14 ff.

[372] Ménant, "Babylone," p. 204.

[373] Schrader, "Abstammung der Chaldæer," s. 405. So, too, Istar of Agane is opposed to Istar of Erech.

[374] G. Smith, "Discov." p. 220; Schrader, "Höllenfahrt," p. 15 ff.

[375] Schrader, "Keilschriften und Alt. Test." s. 69, 85, 86.

[376]