Bob,
I was curious myself so did a bit of "Googling" and came up with the
following ( cut & paste job)....
In techniques for measuring weights, the Babylonians made important
improvements upon the invention of the balance. Instead of just comparing the
weights
of two objects, they compared the weight of each object with a set of stones
kept just for that purpose. In the ruins of their cities, archaeologists
have found some of these stones finely shaped and polished. It is believed that
these were the world's first weight standards.
The Babylonians used different stones for weighing different commodities. In
modern English history, the same basis has been used for weight measurements.
For the horseman, the "stone" weight was 14 pounds. In weighing wool the
stone was 16 pounds. For the butcher and fishmonger, the stone was 8 pounds.
The
only legal stone weight in the imperial system was 14 pounds.
The Egyptians and the Greeks used a wheat seed as the smallest unit of
weight, a standard that was very uniform and accurate for the times. The grain
is
still in limited use as a standard weight. However, wheat seeds are no longer
actually put in the pan of the balance scale. Instead, a weight that is
practically the same as that of an average grain of wheat is arbitrarily
assigned
to the grain. The Arabs established a small weight standard for gold, silver
and precious stones which very often were a part of trade or barter deals.
To weight the small valuable quantities, they used as a weight standard a
small bean called a karob. This was the origin of the word carat which jewelers
still use to express the weight of gems and precious metals.
In trading between tribes and nations, many of these methods for measuring
weights and distances gradually became intermixed, particularly by the Romans
who spread this knowledge throughout the known world at that time, also adding
some standards of their own. As the Roman soldiers marched, they kept track
of the distance they traveled by counting paces. A pace was the distance
covered from the time one foot touched the ground until that same foot touched
the ground again, or the length of a double step.
Cheers,
Chris Nowlan
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