there unto him all his brethren and all his sisters and all that had been of his acquaintance before ... every man also gave him a piece of money and every one an _earring_ of gold.’ Consequently Rebekah’s golden ring (whether it was to adorn her nose or ear) of half a shekel weighed 65 grains, being half the light shekel or ox-unit. We are not told the weight of the earrings contributed by his sympathetic kinsfolk for the afflicted patriarch, but it is evident that they were of a uniform standard. No doubt such rings had from time immemorial passed in the ordinary course of barter from hand to hand. This is strongly supported by a piece of evidence produced independently of the previous suggestion by Dr Hoffmann of Kiel, who has showed[56] that _betzer_ (‎‏בצר‏‎) the word used for gold in Job xxii. 24-25 (_bĕtzĕr_) and in Job xxxvi. 19 (_b’tzar_), from a comparison of its cognates in Hebrew and Arabic means simply a _ring_, which through the extended meaning _ring-gold_ came finally to be used as a name for the metal simply. To take another example from a very different region, the golden ornaments of the ancient Irish (of which numerous specimens exist in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy) were made according to specified weight. Thus queen Medbh is represented as saying: ‘My spear-brooch of gold, which weighs thirty ungas, and thirty half ungas, and thirty crosachs and thirty quarter [crosachs].’ O’Curry, _Manners and Customs of Ancient Irish_, iii. 112. But we need not go beyond Greek soil itself for such illustrations. The well-known story of Archimedes and the weight of the golden crown, which led to the discovery of specific gravity, is sufficient to show that the practice in Greece was such as I describe. [Illustration: FIG. 9. Rings found in the tombs of Mycenae.]