I have pieced together a number of resources for
islamic octagonal
weightsDavid
Hendin has a few in
his "
Ancient Scale Weights" book its the nearest I have found to a traditional reference for Octagonal
weights.
-
I have found some articles over the years interesting, Lionel
Holland has one published in the
American Numismatic Society 1986 titled "
Islamic Bronze
Weights from
Caesarea Maritima". He has a assemblage of
weights all form the
Caesarea area, he has 602 listed and weighed (maybe 150 in photos).
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Paul
Balog wrote a article "
Islamic Bronze
Weights from Eqypt" that is a helpful review.
-
I have found a
bit of conflicting info as to how to attribute octagonal
weights, other than I mostly consider them
Islamic. I have
had some argue that the Vikings after initiating trade with the Arabs in 800-900 AD,
cast their own octagonal
weights. Others say
weights found along the Russian rivers
north of the Black sea as well
sat the Baltic were carried by trade.
-
I agree with Basil that your original
weight at the top is a 5 Uqiyyah or 50
dirham weight (152.7g=5
uncia 30.5g =50 dirhams of 3.05 g) a number of authors including
Balog discuss the
weight of a legal
dirham calculated as 2.97 by weighing a large number of Umayyad and early Abbasis silver dirhams which were in excellent condition. I have also read that many octagonal
weights were used up to the 17th century by the Ottomans, I am not clear if they
cast weights that late and to what
weight standards if they did.
-
cordially
cw
