[Avodah] Half-Shekel found from the time of Bayis Sheni

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Mar 19, '08 at 5:27pm EDT, R Gershon Dubin wrote to Areivim:
: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125612

In that story, they say the sheqel weighed 13 gm. Given that it's missing
a bit from wear, it's fair to assume a full sheqel was a shade more.
Rashi holds a sheqel was only 11.76 gm, and the Rif, 14.16 gm. The
evidence seems to confirm the Rif.

The Rambam writes (Sheqalim 3:2) that a sheqel is 320 grains of barley.
R' Chaim Brown <http://tinyurl.com/yswno3> writes:
> Peter Bernstein writes in "The Power of Gold: The History of an
> Obsession" (p. 24), "Today the carat has been replaced by the grain as the
> conventional unit of weight [for gold and other precious metals]. Grains
> of barley or wheat in the middle of the ear have the same remarkable
> attributes as the carat -- a standard weight regardless of the size of
> the ear."

Similarly, a site dedicated to British Weights and Measures
<http://home.clara.net/brianp/weights.html> writes:
> The basic unit of weight in the British system is the grain - originally
> based on the weight of a grain of barley (but note that money was based
> on the grain of wheat - and that three grains of barley weigh the same as
> four of wheat). This grain is the troy grain - there is no other weight
> of the same name.

> The weight of one grain is constant throughout the many different
> systems of British weights. As you will see below, the ounce and pound
> are anything but contstant, but have altered to meet circumstances over
> a period of over a thousand years.

So, given that a grain is a remarkably constant unit of measure, I figured
the Rambam's grains would be similar to the British unit "grain", also
based on barley -- 64.79891 mg. This would make a sheqel (320 barleys)
equal 20.74 gm. Too large for this coin, I think. It would mean that
more than a third of the coin is missing.


I'm not sure why the article makes the assumption that this particular
coin may have been involved in the mitzvah of machatzis hasheqel. But
if the probability is real, wouldn't it have to be treated as heqdeish?

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
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