one kind of shekel, and that it is only in Exodus, Numbers and Leviticus, all of late date, that we find the shekel distinguished as that of the Sanctuary, and that it is only in Samuel that we find reference made to the _royal shekel_. It is also worthy of notice that neither in Genesis nor Judges is there any mention made of a maneh or talent, although there was full opportunity for the appearance of the former if it had been then in use, as we find such sums as 400 shekels (4 manehs), 1100 shekels (11 manehs) and 1700 shekels (17 manehs), whilst in the other series of books named we find both the maneh and the talent. It is not unreasonable therefore to suppose, that with the advent of the _maneh_ and _kikkar_ or talent from their powerful kinsfolk and neighbours came also the practice of employing the double shekel, the fiftieth part of the mina of gold and mina of silver, which was employed in that part of the Assyrio-Babylonian empire, where the use of the heavy Assyrian shekel was in vogue. Besides gold and silver, spices were likewise weighed according to the shekel of the Sanctuary. “Take thee also unto thee principal spices, of pure myrrh five hundred [shekels], and of sweet cinnamon half as much [even] two hundred and fifty [shekels], and of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty [shekels], and of cassia five hundred [shekels], after the shekel of the Sanctuary[331].” If we had any doubt as to whether it was not possible that there were two separate shekels of the Sanctuary, one for gold, and one of different standard for silver, our misgivings are at once dispelled by finding spices weighed after the holy shekel. It is certainly incredible that there could have been a separate standard of the Sanctuary for the weighing of spices. There seems then no reasonable doubt that there was only one shekel of the Sanctuary, and that the unit of 130 grains. In support of this we may adduce Josephus[332], who made the Jewish gold shekel a Daric (which as we have already seen is our unit of 130 grains). This in turn derives support from the fact that the Septuagint, which regularly renders the Hebrew _sheqel_ (which like the Greek _Talanton_ means simply _weight_) by both _siklos_ and _didrachmon_, not unfrequently renders _shekel of gold_ by chrysûs[333], which means of course nothing more than gold _stater_, that is a didrachm of gold, such as those struck by the Athenians, by Philip of Macedon, Alexander and the successors of the latter, including the Ptolemies of Egypt, under whom was made the Septuagint Version. We have thus found the earliest Hebrew weight unit to be that standard which we have found universally diffused, and which we have called the ox-unit.