I'd like to ask about persian
standard of Darius I. I've seen this explanation:
1 AV Daric of 130 grs. x 13.3 = 1729 grs. AR = 20 Persic Sigloi of 86.45 grs.
5 AV Darics of 130 grs x 13.3 = 8645 grs. AR = 1 Persic Mina of silver, = 100 sigloi.
300 AV Darics of 130 grs. x 13.3 = 518700 grs. AR = 1 Persic
Talent of silver, = 6000 sigloi.
And it seems I do not understand it properly. Were there different "
grains" for both gold and silver? Because 1 daric - 8,4 g = 130
grains so 1 grain = 0,0646.
But 1
siglos = 5,4 g = 86,45
grains so 1 grain = 0,0626.
When we apply the one "
weight" of grain (let's use 1 grain = 0,0646 g) we have proper result for a daric (130
grains x 0,0646 = 8,39 g) but when we use it to calculate
weight of the
siglos we'll end up with the wrong
weight (86,45
grains x 0.0646 = 5,58 g instead of 5,4 g).
Or maybe there were two different systems for gold and silver? I've heard something about babylonian gold mina and persic silver mina, but do not fully grasp the idea.
It seems there was a royal light gold mina, raised at some point to 420 g, so 1
shekel (gold daric, 1/50 of the mina) was 8,4 g (130
grains).
But there was also a separate mina - royal silver light mina raised at some point to 561 g so 1
siglos, being the "half
shekel" would be 86,5
grains. But it's
still not quite
good because
siglos would be 561/100 = 5,6 g, not 5,4 g.
But there's also a Common Silver Mina which
weight was 545.75 g which would be ok because
siglos would be then 5,45 g but that would be 84,15
grains and not 86,45...
I totally do not understand it.
