Antiquities > Weights and Scales

The 72 nomismata weight of Zemarchus.

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glebe:
Readers who have a copy of Bendall’s book on Byzantine weights may be familiar with item 126, the striking 72 nomismata weight issued by Zemarchus, Eparch of Constantinople in the time of Justinian I.

This weight was part of the Kircherian Museum of antiquities formed initially in the 17 century, but eventually it came up for auction in 1994.

It is now noted in the Pondera database under ID 5515 as being from an “unidentified private collection”, but in fact it is now in the ANS collection of Byzantine weights, under the ID BZ.2018.008.

There is no image of the weight in Pondera, but the ANS image is shown below.

The ANS gives no figure for the actual weight of this item (or any of their 136 Byzantine weights in fact) but Pondera gives a weight of 310.2 gm. Bendall says 309.5 gm, presumably the figure given by the auction house in 1994.

Ross G.

Joe Sermarini:
Very nice piece.

quadrans:
Nice one 👍🤗

Joe/Q.

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