Bronze Weight with "Bird's Eye" markings

[v-drome]

Hi.  Here is a beautiful little bronze cuboid weight.  Can anyone give me an opinion on the date and weight system in use.  This was a surface find from the beach at Caesarea so it could be almost any era.  The divisions of the weight don't seem to match either the Islamic Dirhem and Dinar fractions, so it may be more consistent with the Roman or Byzantine material, but I am just starting to learn about these so I am not sure.  Thanks, Jimi

Islamic? Weight  BCC BW12
Bronze  
Marked with a total of 10 “bird’s eye” concentic circle
punch marks: 4 on one side, and 2 on three sides.  
The other 2 sides are blank.
Cubiod shape: 12.25 x 12.0 x 11.5mm.
14.12gm.

[Christopher H2]

What a strange object! Best of luck in making progress with this, I really hope you will be able to solve this puzzle!

[SC]

A die for a strange game??

Shawn

[Pekka K]

Now they are made like these:

[v-drome]

Well, I do have a bone or ivory die with all the modern markings, except that it is not even close to being a cube!  I will post it soon.  Here is a set of polyhedral bronze weights that I always thought were Byzantine, but now have seen referred to as "Early Islamic".  Lionel Holland's article on Islamic Weights from Caesarea lists several polyhedral and small cuboids that fit the Dirham system.  Our cube is very close to the middle polyhedral at 14.16gm, so this could be a 5 Dirham weight (approx. 2.83 x 5).  Thanks again, to my friends for the input.  Any ideas are always welcome.  Best regards, Jimi

BCC BW1-5
5 Bronze Weights
1. Diameter: 24mm. 57.71gm.
2. Diameter:18mm. 28.70gm.
3. Diameter:14mm. 14.16gm.
4. Diameter: 8mm. 2.86gm.
5. Diameter: 6mm. 0.96gm.
Byzantine or early Islamic 6th-8 cent. CE?