Again the Phoenicians and Hebrews who from the earliest times were in constant contact with Mesopotamia ought certainly to exhibit traces in their earliest extant records of the _mina_ and _talent_, if it was from these units that the weight-system started. Yet that is not the evidence afforded by the Old Testament. There is no mention of a _mina_ except in Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, and Ezekiel, all books of late date. In the Book of Genesis where sums of money are mentioned, they are reckoned by shekels and nothing else. So when Abraham bought the cave of Machpelah for 600 pieces of silver, what could have been more convenient than to describe the purchase money as consisting of 12 _manahs_ (_minas_)[304]? Thus, as we shall see later on, the conclusion to be drawn from the ancient Hebrew writings is the same as that which we draw from the Homeric Poems, that it is the shekel (or stater), the small unit, which was the first to be employed, and that it was only in the course of time that the higher units, the _mina_ and the _talent_, make their appearance. If according to the common theory the weight standards were the actual creations of either Chaldaeans or Egyptians and only borrowed from them by other peoples, why do we not find the higher units appearing from the first amongst those supposed borrowers, if the other part of the theory is true, that they started from a high unit? Now for the evidence of the monuments themselves. The weights found by Sir A. H. Layard fall into two classes, (_a_) those in the shape of Lions, which are made of bronze, and (_b_) those in the shape of Ducks, which are of stone[305]. “The bronze Lions are for the most part furnished with a handle on the back of the animal, and are generally inscribed with a double legend, one in cuneiform characters, the other in Aramaic.” The Ducks which are inscribed have a legend in cuneiform characters only. These inscriptions contain not only the name of the king of Babylon or Assyria in whose reign they were made, but likewise a statement of the number of the minas or fractions of a mina which each weight originally represented. As these weights were found in the ancient palace some have thought that they were possibly official standards of weight deposited from time to time in the royal palaces[306]. This seems at least to be implied by the inscriptions on some of them, such as those of the largest and most ancient of the Duck weights, which run as follows: (1) ‘The palace of Irta-Merodach, King of Babylon [circ. B.C. 1050], 30 Manahs[307].’ Wt., 15060·5 grammes, yielding a Mina of 502 gram. (2) ‘Thirty Manahs of Nabu-suma-libur, King of Assyria,’ [date unknown]. Wt., 14589 gram. A small portion of this weight is broken off; if this is allowed for it will yield a Mina of about the same weight as No. 1. (3) ‘Ten Manahs’ (somewhat injured), bears the name of ‘Dungi,’ according to George Smith, King of Babylon circ. B.C. 2000.