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Author Topic: Weights from Olympia  (Read 1000 times)

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Offline glebe

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Weights from Olympia
« on: February 09, 2017, 08:21:16 pm »
Generally speaking early balance weights from mainland Greek cities are rare, with two exceptions - the lead weights from Athens and the bronze weights from Olympia in the Peloponnese.
Almost 500 weights were found during the controlled excavations of Olympia, and most of these are now in the museums of Athens and Olympia, with a number also in the Staatsliche Museum in Berlin.
Olympian weights never appear on the market, but you can find most of the Berlin examples here:

http://tinyurl.com/hu4jw98

(Search on gewicht bronze olympia)

Unfortunately, as is common for museums, no weights are given (you need Hitzl's book), so I show some typical examples below with their weights.  

There were at least three main weight scales at Olympia, which Hitzl calls A, B and C; A and B correspond to the Euboic and Phoenician mina standards of 437 and 460 gm (the latter being the main pre-Roman standard at Athens), while C matches Tekin's 480 gm standard. The basic inscription is a simple DIOS (Zeus) on Scale A weights, plus extras on the later scales.

The Euboic standard is particularly interesting, as Olympia is the only place where we actually find weights (as opposed to coins) on this scale (except for Tekin 12, a 1-4 mina found at Smyrna). Probably though other Peloponnesian cities also used this standard, but so far no examples have turned up as far as I know.

Ross G.



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Re: Weights from Olympia
« Reply #1 on: February 10, 2017, 01:36:09 am »
Interesting sets.... +++

Q.
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