Metal was more expensive. As has already been noticed, a copper libation-bowl and cup were sold for 4 manehs 9 shekels (£37 7s.), and two copper dishes, weighing 7½ manehs (19 pounds 8 ounces. troy), were valued at 22 shekels. The skilled labor expended upon the work was the least part of the cost. The workman was supplied with his materials by the customer, and received only the value of his labor. What this was can be gathered from a receipt dated the 11th day of Chisleu, in the fourteenth year of Nabonidos, recording the payment of 4 shekels to “the ironsmith,” Suqâ, for making certain objects out of 3⅚ manehs of iron which had been handed over to him. The cost of bricks and reeds has already been described. Bitumen was more valuable. In the fourteenth year of Nabonidos a contract was made to supply five hundred loads of it for 50 shekels, while at the same time the wooden handle of an ax was estimated at one shekel. Five years previously only 2 shekels had been given for three hundred wooden handles, but they were doubtless intended for knives. In the sixth year of Nabonidos the grandson of the priest of Sippara undertook to supply “bricks, reeds, beams, doors, and chopped straw for building the house of Rimut” for 12 manehs of silver, or £108. The wages of the workmen were not included in the contract. With these prices it is instructive to compare those recorded on contract-tablets of the age of the third dynasty of Ur, which preceded that under which Abraham was born. These tablets, though very numerous, have as yet been but little examined, and the system of weights and measures which they contain is still but imperfectly known. We learn from them that bitumen could be purchased at the time at the rate of half a shekel of silver for each talent of 60 manehs, and that logs of wood imported from abroad were sold at the rate of eight, ten, twelve, and sixty logs a shekel, the price varying according to the nature of the wood. Prices, however, as might be expected, are usually calculated in grain, oil, and the like, and the exact relation of these to the shekel and maneh has still to be determined.