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Author Topic: Interesting Byzantine weight  (Read 2487 times)

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Offline wileyc

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Interesting Byzantine weight
« on: June 20, 2011, 01:46:38 am »
I thought this was a interesting weight. It appears to be a lead foil that has been coiled on to itself to the desired weight of a one Nomisma, I would be curious if anyone else had a different idea.

Thanks

CW

Offline Basil

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Re: Interesting Byzantine weight
« Reply #1 on: June 20, 2011, 11:21:09 am »
Hi,
Normally you can find such weights made ​​of lead with  a copper foil. This was done because copper was very expensive. Specimens  as described here are also well known. They used a lead foil  for easier adjustment of the standard  weight. Both types are relatevely rare ecpecially if the are marked or engraved with there value

Basil

Democritus

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Re: Interesting Byzantine weight
« Reply #2 on: October 16, 2012, 11:10:06 am »
Interesting - is the weight given? - I could not find it.

Coating a lead core with copper is not primarily to save money on copper I think.

It is to stop the weight of the weight being tampered with by filing it down - the lead will show through if that is attempted.

The Vikings did the same thing but using copper covering a (spherical) iron core

Rob

Offline Abu Galyon

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Re: Interesting Byzantine weight
« Reply #3 on: October 16, 2012, 01:00:05 pm »
Interesting - is the weight given? - I could not find it.

A 1 nomisma weight is presumably just over 4.4g.

Bill R.

Offline wileyc

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Re: Interesting Byzantine weight
« Reply #4 on: October 17, 2012, 02:25:11 pm »
this weight is 22mm by 12mm about 2m thick

4.22g

this is another lead foil weight with mark of value, 1 nomismat, 9mm by 9mm by 4mm, 4.68g

cw


more weights here

with a couple of other lead foil weights


https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=3262

I agree with Basil ( who has published a nice book of weights)
Weber, K.: " Byzantinische Münzgewichte"
Materialkorpus für 1-Nomiksma-Gewichte
Hamburg 2009
ISSN 1430-1881, no. 10
This book contains approx 600 different weights.

http://www.coinsweekly.com/en/Archive/8?&id=73&type=n


my impression also would be that the lead is easily folded and can be built up until the needed weight is attained. Lead being so soft would not tolerate a-lot of use. I would consider then that copper covering would last longer than lead and as you said might prevent fraud.

cw

Democritus

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Re: Interesting Byzantine weight
« Reply #5 on: October 30, 2012, 10:58:28 am »
That is a nice selection of weights

But I would make quite a lot of them Islamic rather than Roman/Byzantine

EG –  Late Roman-Byzantine Spherical Barrel Weight1/2 unica (14.61g based on a libra of 351.12g) Bronze barrel 15mm by 11mm 14.61 g Hendin 333

Which looks to me like Holland (2009) 114 – or Hendin 429 (1/2 wuqqiya of 5 dirhems)

Also the weights you list as Islamic are very strange indeed in my experience

EG: Late period Polyhedron Islamic weight. two Uqiyyah? plain all sides 10mm by 20mm by 20mm, 60.34g 

Islamic multifaceted weights usually look like Hendin 411.  Holland 123+ are better examples of the same.

Yours however all are basically cubes with the corners taken off.  The only weights I ever saw of that form were a group Mark Blackburn showed me – from the Viking site at Torksey – and others from Viking sites like Kaupang in Denmark

Am curious to know if you have a provenance for your weights of this type?

On the bronze coated lead weights - we will have to agree to differ.

Rob

Offline wileyc

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Re: Interesting Byzantine weight
« Reply #6 on: October 30, 2012, 01:47:18 pm »
I have provenance for about half.

I do not disagree about shifting attribution to Islamic for a number of them.

Interesting what you mention about the weights at the viking site. Did they feel these were from trade or have consistent weights been found at other Viking sites.

Most of these I have catalogued and no longer are in my possession.

The bronze coated weights I do not really disagree with you, I have just understood different interpretations.

Thanks for your input.

cw

Democritus

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Re: Interesting Byzantine weight
« Reply #7 on: November 04, 2012, 07:36:42 am »
Hello CW

I suspect that weights of the form I identified were primarily made and used by Vikings.  Whether they were exclusively made and used by Viking I do not know enough to claim.  I could forward some of your scans to Lionel Holland I guess - he has been searching the Caesarea Maritima site for decades I think - to see if he ever saw any.

Viking standards are controversial.  They are not exactly the same as Islamic ones - but I think it is virtually certain they had Islamic influence - the fact that they put pseudo-Islamic inscriptions on some of their weights seems to me a clincher.

I prefer Sperber's interpretation of the situation - that the Ora was fixed a 6 Mithcals - thus:

6 x c. 4.25g = c. 25.5g

It seems to me that this does not really contradict those who want to make the Ora equal to 20 pennies of c. 1.3g, nor those others who want to make it a degraded version of a Roman ounce.

International traders are obviously going to make use of such fortuitous similarities I think.

I say more on this in my last book.

Finally, I would add that it is a rare pleasure, (and all the more pleasurable for it), to come across someone willing to make an effort to debate constructively on an internet group

Thanks

Rob

a

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Re: Interesting Byzantine weight
« Reply #8 on: September 06, 2013, 07:00:51 am »
Hi,

This one is mine of the same series - Byzantine weight with lead core and copper foil cover.

The weight is 92.4g - 4 uncia?

The figure is cylinder with diameter 23mm and height 25mm.

regards,
Explorer

 

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