Late Roman/Early Byzantine Weights - I

[glebe]

I have put together a number of charts summarising the commoner types of Late Roman/Early Byzantine scale weights, organised basically along the lines of Entwistle's classification.
The first of these charts is attached below - if people are interested I can add the others.

Ross G.

P.S. This is a fairly large file, so you may need to reset your (browser) zoom to optimise the image size for viewing. Or alternatively save the image off for easier viewing.

Revised 12 May 2023:  Semissis and Tremissis weights added (not in Entwistle or Bendall but fairly common in Pondera).

[v-drome]

Beautiful!  Thank you, Ross.

[Joe Sermarini]

More, please.

[Virgil H]

You should make a Numiswiki page out of these, too. Great stuff.

Virgil

[glebe]

Here is chart II.

Ross G.

Edited  23 May '23

[glebe]

.... chart III

Ross G.

Note that the image of the 6 nomismata weight of 25.69g is inverted, as it was originally.
I have left it that way as reinverting it tends to give an illusion of a negative "popped" surface like that on the adjacent 3 nomismata weight, and on the 2 uncia weight just above left (and also on the 36 nomismata weight further down it seems).

Some people may have fancy image processors that can fix this problem.

Edited 05 May 2023

[glebe]

and finally chart IV.

Ross G.

Here the top three weights are lit from below, so many people may perceive negative versions of the images, since they are used to seeing coins and weights lit from above.

[glebe]

I have made a few additions to Chart III.

Ross G.

[wileyc]

Really nice Ross.

cw

[glebe]

One of the weights missing from the charts above is a libra version of the “three arch” type (which shows actually the façade of a basilica?).

An example of this type from the Menil collection is however shown in Bendall as No. 50 (with no weight), and this weight is listed In Pondera as Item 3914, with a weight of 320.05 gm.

Pictures of this weight can be found an article on the Menil weights by Vikan & Nesbitt now (2019) available on the Academia site, and separately in a 1980 article on "Security in Byzantium" by the same authors also available on Academia.

These pictures are shown below - the images are a bit obscure but I have brightened them up as best I can. Note the odd differences between the images - particularly the legend. Has the weight been cleaned between the two photos?

Ross G.