Apologies for weighing in on this discussion so late (and excuse the pun, please)! I have a similar "set" of
weights, although mine were acquired individually, and only one of them is known to have originated from Caesareia Maritima.
I've always understood these to be Hellenistic or Early
Roman coin
weights used for weighing drachms, didrachms and tetradrachms, from the Eastern Mediterranean, where various
weight standards were in operation and where quite a lot of money-changing would have gone on (e.g. by the money-changers at the Temple whose tables Jesus overturned, and who provided the Phoenician silver coins that were required for paying the
Temple Tax). They have a characteristic "stretched ox-hide" shape - there was an ancient tradition of casting metal ingots in the shape of an ox-hide.
(Parallel to these are other, heavier and bulkier
weights likewise with Greek letter-numerals on them, but these are market
weights, and the units are based on the
uncia.)
The most interesting is the
drachm weight with LA. This weighs 3.91 g, which is close to the
weight of the common Attic-standard drachmae of Aradus (around 4.15 g). From Caesareia Maritima. The L in front of the A suggests an
Egyptian connection (the symbol appears preceding regnal year numbers on Alexandreian coins), and we know from the "sands of Caesareia" imitation dichalkoi that Caesareia and
Egypt were commercially linked.
- Francis