A Babylonian duck weight.
What else would you use if you had to weigh a bunch of ducks?
Posted on 03/20/2008 2:48:27 PM PDT by blam
New Babylonian town found
Azzaman, March 19, 2008
Iraqi archaeologists have discovered a new Babylonian town 180 kilometers south of Baghdad.
The head archaeologist Mohammed Yahya said the town is more than 20,000 square meters in area and includes administrative quarters, temples and other buildings of “magnificent and splendid design”
Yahya, who is the head of the provincial Antiquities Department in the Province of Diwaniya, where the new Babylonian town was discovered, said he still lacks evidence on the town’s ancient name.
The locals call it Shamiya after a provincial district nearby, he said.
“We have dug up a sectional sounding covering more than 20 square meters and have come across fascinating finds,” he said.
Most striking has been a 30-kilogram Babylonian Duck Weight.
“This is a unique find because the duck weights discovered so far are maximum 10 kilograms,” Yahya said.
He added that his team has come across several cuneiform tablets but “there is no one to read the ancient writing because Iraqi experts with the knowledge to decipher Mesopotamian script have fled the country.”
The shape of the finds tells that they belong to the Late Babylonian Period, about 1000 BC, Yahya said, but added that only specialists can give the exact dates.
The scientists have unearthed four graves but the positioning of the bodies has been somewhat perplexing.
Yahya said two of them had half of their bodies buried in the wall of a house and the other half in an urn.
The two others had iron nails in their hands, feet and necks indicating that they might have been executed, he added.
“Ancient Babylonian legislations must have been quite brutal,” he added.
Other finds include cylinder seals which could easily be compared with counterparts discovered in Babylon, 90 kilometers away.
“We have evidence of an intricate and highly developed sewage system in the town which can easily be compared with modern ones,” he said.
What the heck is a “duck weight?”
It’s like a “hen weigh”.
Yes chopping of heads is so much more civilized then driving nails through feet, hands, and neck, then cutting the body in half and burying half in a wall and half in an urn.
I know there is a witch joke in here somewhere
I was expectin, “about ten pounds...”
Ba-da-bump.
;)
Dang! I didn’t even come close to setting the hook! :-)
Just reporting you decide.
What's a hen weigh?
A Babylonian duck weight.
What else would you use if you had to weigh a bunch of ducks?
Well, you learn something new every day...
Granite Weight In The Form Of A Duck
Kingdom of Lagash, about 2150-2000 BC
Probably from southern Iraq
The weight is inscribed in cuneiform with the name of Ur-Ningirsu, ruler of the city-state of Lagash as the successor to Gudea. Ur-Ningirsu ruled in a period following the decline of the empire of Agade (Akkad) and the rise of a new political power centred on the city of Ur.
Although all the administrators of city states in southern Mesopotamia used the cuneiform writing system, they used various methods of weighing and measuring. With the formation of the empires of Agade and Ur the cities were united under one king. Attempts were made to reorganize the administration and introduce standardization. This must have helped communication and control.
The weight of this stone is given as 2 talents. A talent was approximately 30 kilos and could be divided into 60 minas. Stone was preferred for weights of different standards in the Bronze Age (about 3000-1000 BC). There was a gradual shift to metals in the first millennium BC (for example, two bronze weights in the form of a lion, also in The British Museum).
In german, the name “Ur” is still extant in the language, as in “Uralt” - really, really old.
Funny how things like that work.
Have they found “Mohammed’s” tomb???????????
A 30 kilogram duck weight? Yes, ducks were bigger back then!
35 seconds. Neener neener! BTT.
as in Asbach Uralt a distilled brandy-like spirit...
Yep - last time I was in Germany, I searched all over for an Eschenbacher Aschenbecher...all I could find was Asbach!
'La bonne cuisine est la base du véritable bonheur.' - Auguste Escoffier
(Good food is the foundation of genuine happiness.)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
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