From this double series of weights Mr Head infers that there were two distinct minae simultaneously in use during the long period of time which elapsed between about B.C. 2000, and B.C. 625. "The heavier of these two minae appears to have been just the double of the lighter. Brandis is probably not far from the mark in fixing the weight of the heavy mina at 1010 grammes, and that of the light at 505 grammes.
"It has been suggested that the lighter of these two minae may have been peculiar to the Babylonian, and the heavier to the Assyrian empire; but this cannot be proved. But nevertheless it would seem that the use of the heavy mina was more extended in Syria than that of the lighter, if we may judge from the fact that most of the weights belonging to the system of the heavy mina have in addition to the cuneiform inscription an Aramaic one.
"The purpose which this Aramaic inscription served must clearly have been to render the weight acceptable to the Syrian and Phoenician merchants who traded backwards and forwards between Assyria and Mesopotamia on the one hand, and the Phoenician emporia on the other.
"The Phoenician traders.
"The Phoenician commerce was chiefly a carrying trade. The richly embroidered stuffs of Babylonia and other products of the East were brought down to the coasts, and then carefully packed in chests of cedarwood in the markets of Tyre and Sidon, whence they were shipped by the enterprising Phoenician mariners to Cyprus, to the coasts of the Aegean, or even to the extreme West.
"Hence the Phoenician city of Tyre was called by Ezekiel (xxvii.) 'a merchant of the people for many isles.'
- [Footnote: a careful process of weighing in a balance of precision by an officer of the
Standard Department and the result was published by Mr W. H. Chisholme in the Ninth Annual Report of the Warden of the Standards 1874-5, where a complete list of all of them may be found.
All the more important pieces had however been weighed many years before, and it need only be stated that the results of the process of re-weighing under more favourable conditions are in the main identical with those formerly arrived at by Queipo and the late Dr Brandis.]
