Scales Comparative Ritual

The Ritual Origin of the Balance
Author(s): A. Seidenberg and J. Casey

Source: Archive for History of Exact Sciences , 30.XII.1980, Vol. 23, No. 3 (30.XII.1980),
pp. 179-226
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41133594
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The Ritual Origin of the Balance
A. Seidenberg & J. Casey
/. Preliminaries
1 . Statement of the problem
2. The Balance in America
//. The Balance
3. Myths and rites related to the balance
a. The Contest
b. The Judgement
c. The Offering
d. The Balancing of Heaven and Earth
4. The evidence in the light of a hypothesis
a. The Contest
b. Good and bad, light and heavy
bis. Divination by weight
c. The Offering and the Balancing
///. Weights
5. Problem of the origin of standards
6. Seeds as standard weights
7. What was weighed in ancient times?
8. Gold
Summary
References
I. Preliminaries
1. Statement of the problem. The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead is

a collection of compositions largely intended to help the dead in yonder world
Introductory to the Theban recension of the Book1 are a few hymns to RA
and one to Osiris Un-NEFER, after which comes a description of the Judgemen
(followed by Chapter I). This ordering of the work, with the Judgement at
the beginning, seems reasonable, since if the deceased didn't pass the Judgement,
he wouldn't have any use for the rest of the book. 2
1 Translated by Sir E.A.Wallis Budge. 3 vols. 2nd ed.

2 For the views expressed in this paragraph, see Budge, op. cit. p. v and p. 21. In
the Book itself the Judgement has already taken place by the end of Chapter I {cf. Budge,
op. cit., p. 44).
Archive for History of Exact Sciences, Volume 23 © by Springer-Verlag 1980

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180 Α. Seidenberg & J. Casey
Fig. 1 . The Judgement.
The chapters are often prefaced with

so for the Judgement, so we can see
variation in detail in the various papyr
weighing of the heart of the decease
of truth and rectitude. In the Papyrus
and his wife Thuthu enter the Hall of D
of the conscience, is to be weighed in the
of Right and Truth. In the upper regist
on the standard of the scales sits the do
the scribe of the gods; and the god A
of the balance. ... On the right of the balance stands Thoth ..., who holds
in his hands his reed-pen and palette with which to record the result of the
trial. Behind Thoth stands the monster called ... Amam, the "Devourer" ..."
(Budge, op. cit., p. 22). If the heart did not meet the test, it was thrown
to Amam, who devoured it, and that was the end.
We find the Judgement Scene fascinating. It is obvious that is shows a
vast complex of symbols.
In viewing the Scene it occurred to one of us that the balance must have
had a ritual origin. This conjecture is in accord with Lord Raglan's theory
that the fundamental inventions on which civilization rested had a ritual origin,
that they were the product of a desire to elaborate the ritual. 3 Raglan consid-
ered a number of such inventions, but he did not consider that he had established
the theory. The theory is an inductive one, to be established by considering
the various ancient inventions and seeing whether they vindicate the theory.4
3 See his book How Came Civilization*}

4E. Hahn (1856-1928) held that the domestication of cattle began entirely for ritual
purposes; and thought that the plough was originally a phallic symbol; he "held that
the original wheeled chariot was a priestly model of the sun, moon, and stars, and Laufer
holds that the wheeled chariot was used for religious worhsip before it was used for
transportation" (Raglan, op. cit., pp. 8,8, 96, 105). R.H. Lowie considers such views
to be "far-fetched" and "fantastic" {cf. The History of Ethnological Theory, pp. 112-119,
esp. p. 1180-

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Ritual Origin of the Balance 181
To us the conjecture on the balance was a thesis to be

was: How do you do it?
The claim that the heart of the deceased is weig
a myth. And a myth, we consider, is, or often is, the
By comparing a myth with its associated rite we often ge
of both. Therefore, given a myth, we try to imagine, and
ing rite. In the case of the weighing of the heart,
corresponding rite: It seemed to us out of the questi
the heart of the deceased was actually weighed.6 Thus
Of course we would have liked to have had mor
rites. But we could not remember any from our read
(although, in retrospect, perhaps we should have). The
from modern times, that we read about in the newspaper: the Aga Khan,
who was head of the sect of Ismailis, had himself weighed against gold and
precious stones; the corresponding value was then contributed to the welfare
of his followers. 7
This is a beautiful rite, i.e., from the scientific point of view. First we
see that the Aga Khan was a giver. This is a theme expounded on by Hocart
in his theory of the kingship, namely, that the king, or in our case the head
of the ritual, is a life-giver. 8 Moreover, the Aga Khan is supposed to give
of himself, or rather, himself. This is done by finding an equivalent.
Ritual deals (and necessarily deals) with equivalences. The reason for this,
we think, is that the basic notion in ritual is the identification of the sacrificer
with the sacrifice; and there is a rather compelling reason why this should
be done only symbolically (or through ritual action) and not actually.9 In
our paper "The Ritual Origin of Counting" we gave many examples of rites
in which the participant in ritual, upon being called onto the scene, deposits
there a stone or some other object. According to the explanation given there,
5 The statement that "a myth is the counterpart of a rite" is to be taken neither
as a defintion, nor theorem, nor as a dogmatic assertion, but merely as a working hypothesis.
Wallis Budge was so taken by the scene that he wrote: "It seems impossible
to doubt that at some remote time they believed in the actual weighing of a portion
of the physical body of a man as a part of the ceremony of Judgement" (The Gods
of the Egyptians, vol. 2, p. 143). Later we shall be able better to see what we consider
to be the truth in Budge's surmise.
7 See the San Francisco Chronicle of October 20, 1952, p. 12. For some details of
the "Golden Jubilee", in which the Aga Khan was weighed against gold, and of the
"Diamond Jubilee", in which he was weighed against diamonds, see his Memoirs, World
Enough and Time, pp. 257 and 304-7.
0 A.M. Hocart, Kings and Councillors, Chaps. 15 and 16.
9 The central feature of ancient ritual is the sacrifice, and the central notion is that
the principal is the sacrifice. If the principal were the sacrifice, and not merely feigned
to be such, then he would wind up dead. This, we think, would have acted as a restraint
on the development of ritual. Whether ancient ritual stems from a rite in which the principal
was slain or whether the notion that the principal dies was always a fiction or whether
some other hypotheses will explain what we find is a difficult question into which we
need not enter: ancient ritual for the most part identifies the principal with the sacrifice
symbolically, leaving the principal intact.

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this is a device for evading a danger

attendant upon his being called onto
For the sake of concreteness, we gi
This is from Exodus 30: 11-16:
11. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

12. When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number
then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord,
when thou numberest them ; that there be no plague among them, whe
thou numberest them.
13. This they shall give, every one that passeth among them that are num-
bered, half a shekel after a shekel of the sanctuary (a shekel is twenty
gerahs): an half shekel shall be the offering of the Lord.
14. Every one that passeth among them that are numbered, from twenty
years old and above, shall give an offering unto the Lord.
15. The rich shall not give more and the poor shall not give less than half
a shekel, when they give an offering unto the Lord, to make an atonement
for your souls.
This seems clear enough: The Israelite, upon being counted, i.e., upon being
called onto the scene, is in danger, namely, his soul would become the Lord's
(i.e., he would die) unless it is redeemed by substituting for it half a shekel.
Our thinking up to this point could therefore be summarized as follows:
we envisioned a rite in which the sacrificer finds an equivalent of himself,
which will be the sacrifice, by balancing himself against the proposed equivalent
in a balance. We felt that the rite of the Aga Khan can be viewed as a
derivative of such a rite. But we could not make a connection with the Egy
rite. And the example of the Aga Khan remained an isolated one. So
let the matter rest, indeed, for several years.
Recently, as a result of some conversations between ourselves, we
up the subject again with more energy. We were able to find more m
and rites, and although these are not as ample as one might wish, the
enough to see the main features in the origin of the balance.
2. The Balance in America. The theory of ritual origins is associated w
another, namely, the theory of the Diffusion of Culture, according to w
various widespread practices and beliefs are not the spontaneous reaction
the human mind to environing conditions but are the product of certain sp
circumstances. Already at an early stage of our considerations we knew t
the balance occurred in the New World, amongst the Incas of Peru (thoug
not with the Aztecs and Mayas further north). Here we come to a basic i
namely, whether the balance was independently invented in the Old and
Worlds, or whether it came to the New World from the Old;11 and,
10 A. Seidenberg, "The Ritual Origin of Counting", Archive for History of E
Sciences, vol. 2 (1962), p. 22 f.
11 Logically, the issue is whether the balance had a single or a multiple origin;
in the case of a single origin, not whether it came to the New World from the
But for chronological (and other) reasons we will hold that, generally, the New W
culture is derivative of the Old.

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generally put, the question of whether the New and O

disparate worlds, or not; for if the balance was indepe
two Worlds (or if one regarded this as the plausible view
then the proposal to prove its ritual origin would
thought to follow : one would hardly suppose that the sam
followed by the same mental associations, and by the
occur independently twice. One would be prone, rathe
of the balance as a simple response to a simple aspect
nothing surprising in the similar reactions of the min
namely, of weight and balance. Indeed, as we shall se
been advanced.
On the other hand, of course, if one could prove that the balance arose
in the Old World from ritual activities (and not merely in their context), thi
would tend to unburden the mind of the notion that the balance is a simple
response to nature, and make it plausible that the balance in the New World
came from the Old. Since, however, we are not trying to build a deductive
system, but wish to approach the subject inductively, it would appear to be
in order to meet the view of the independence of the New World from the
Old in a direct way; and not just for the balance but more generally.
Although logically this would be the place to consider the relation between
Old and New World culture, actually to do so would lead to a rather lengthy
aside. Therefore we displace the considerations to a separate work. Meanwhil
we ask the reader to bear in mind that in our view many aspects of pre
Columbian New World culture, and especially the facts relating to the balance
are derivative of Old World culture.
Let us then go to the balance, and first to E. NORDENSKlÖLD's idea on
its origin. In brief, he suggests that different inventions may be founded on
the same principle and that one of the inventions may supply the idea for
the other: in the present case he would derive the balance from the balanced
double-load pole, i.e., the pole balanced on the shoulder with equal loads
at the ends (cf. Comparative Ethnological Studies, vol. 1, p. 56).
Before entering into any ethnographical detail, let us say that we find this
line of thought wrong from a methodological point of view, and that it cannot
possibly yield a correct view on the origin of the balance. Nordenskiöld
isolates the rational element from the balance, leaving aside everything else.
How could this possibly cast any light on the ritual use of the balance? No,
a correct explanation of the origin of the balance should explain not only
the balance but also the myths and rites associated with the balance.
It may be argued that, so far anyway, we have only mentioned one myth
and one rite in the Old World, and that things may be different in the New.
But NORDENSKlÖLD's explanation is a universal one, and so applies as much
to the Old World as to the New.
Now for some ethnographical detail. The reader is probably familiar, from
pictures or from travel, with the Oriental coolie's method of carrying burde
using the balanced double-load pole. As usual, one would like to know the
distribution of this practice, especially whether it occurs in the New World;
and thanks to Nordenskiöld we can say that it does. Following McGee
& Orvieto, he gives, respectively, the examples of the Seri Indians of Tiburon,

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in the northern part of Mexico, and t

bia, near Panama; and also mentions a
for the northern tip of South Ameri
South America; and it also does not oc
On the other hand, the balance at the
to Nordenskiöld) only from western South America. Thus there is not a
single simultaneous occurrence of the balance and the carrying pole.
Nordenskiöld sees the difficulty and tries to meet it by an appeal to
loss of culture. Thus not only the Diffusionist but also the Independent Inven-
tionist resorts to this useful notion.
Our own conjecture is that the carrying pole and the balance were brought
in from Asia over the Pacific, one movement bringing the carrying pole into
Central America and Mexico, and another bringing the balance into South
America. Of course, increased knowledge, for example, the discovery of the
carrying pole in western South America, might make us change our conjecture.
In any event, we do agree with Nordenskiöld that the carrying pole and
balance are related, that they are part of a complex.
Although content to get the Balance from the Carrying Pole, Nordenskiöld
does see a difficulty in his theory, namely, where does the carrying pole come
from? He writes:
"As to whether the latter... was independently invented in America is a

question upon which I do not propose to enter. . . . After all, it may well
be considered that a greater leap in cultural progress is represented by
passing on to the carrying pole from some other method of carrying loads,
than in inventing the beam balance on the basis of the carrying pole. In
the former case it implies the exchange of something that has become an
old-established habit for something which is new and involving the use
of a different set of muscles than those it has been habitual to employ,
whilst in the latter case there is nothing but a specialization as regards
the possibilities of the carrying pole."
We can agree that Nordenskiöld has substituted for his original problem
another no less simple.
Small beam scales have been recovered in large numbers from ancient Peru-
vian graves {cf. Ε. Nordenskiöld, " The Ancient Peruvian System of Weights, "
Man, vol. 30 (1930) p. 215). In each of four uninjured balances the difference
in length of the arms does not exceed 1/10 mm.; the lengths of the arms were
43.5, 48.5, 48.5, 52.0 mm. A remarkable accuracy! One of these distinctly reacted
down to 0.05 grams. In one net of the balance found with some stones (S)
to be discussed in a moment there was found tied a tiny morsel of lead weighing
0.2806 grams. In another similar net there was tied a small piece of lead weighing
only 0.0296 grams. These weights were presumably added to achieve a level
position for the arms preparatory to weighing {ibid., p. 218).
Most of the balances do not have a mechanical device for determining
when the balance beam is horizontal, but the Museum für Völkerkunde in
Berlin does possess a treasure of that kind (Fig. 2).

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Fig. 2. Beam-balance from lea.
"On either side of the cord by which the beam is s

In each of these are freely suspended small metal d
of the apertures of the rings. When the latter are
the beam is horizontal, but if any daylight is show
has to be made. " Nordenskiöld adds (be. cit., p. 219
were inventors of no mean capacity."
To those accustomed to think that practices origin
NORDENSKlÖLD's conclusion will appear very plausi
is found in only one place, such a conclusion, or ass
the practice may have originated elsewhere and hav
of origin. Or, indeed, the practice may have been in
foreigners ; or even by natives on the basis of informat
ers. We can agree that the method of finding a lev
that it has not been found in the Old World, but th
it was invented independently in the New.
The people who made the device obviously had me
how to draw an exact circle, and so presumably had
appear to realize that a tangent to a circle is perp
the point of contact, for the device depends on thi
represent remarkable achievements.
In Fig. 2 one will notice a tube rising from the m
a similar device is seen in Fig. 3 in another Per
Pétrie, speaking of what he takes to be a pre-histor
that a tube rises from the middle of its beam; for
book The Wisdom of Egyptians, PI. XVI, see Fig. 4;
with the theory of moments, the function of the tu
who are skeptical that such things are obvious (excep
will be inclined to see the duplication of the tube as e
between the Old and New Worlds ; while others will s
to a problem (which it is), and will be inclined to th
supposed "limitation of possibilities", the problem was solved in the same
way (and independently) in both worlds.
So far we have spoken only about the equal-arm balance. There are three
other types of beam balances which, like the equal-arm balance, involve (sche-
matically) three collinear points, A, F, and B. Here F shall stand for the fulcrum,
Β for the point at which the thing to be weighed is placed, and A the point
at which a known weight or counterpoise is placed. In the equal-arm balance,
12 B. Kisch, Scales and Weights, p. 35.

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Fig. 3. Peruvian balance beams from
Fig. 4. Sketch of an Egyp
the points A, F, Β are fixed,

In the three others Ά fixed w
are fixed, the third variable.
bismar ; if one varies A, one
if one varies B, one gets the th
According to NORDENSKIÖLD, following Max Schmidt, the Quechua of
Peru had the steelyard (Comparative Ethnological Studies, vol. 9, p. 46). The
steelyard would appear to involve some notion of the Law of the Lever (that
objects of unequal weight balance at distances from the fulcrum inversely propor-
tional to their weights), though a steelyard could be calibrated without an
exact knowledge of the Law. The theory of the lever does not occur, so far
as we know, before Aristotle.

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The bismar is described in the Aristotelian or pseu

(20; 835b25). It was used in Grecian times; has, or had
in Europe; and is still in use in the Scandinavian co
and the Malay Peninsula (cf. KISCH, op. cit., p. 58). Th
in the Mechanica. Many specimens have been found in Pompeii, and since
there is no proof of its earlier existence, in either literature or art, it has been
assumed that the Romans invented it.13 It is better known than the bismar,
has a more extensive distribution in the Old World, and even, as was noted,
occurs in the New. According to M. Lazzarini, the inverse steelyard was
used in ancient Egypt. 14
Although the origin of weights that are multiples of a unit is no part of
our thesis, it will be appropriate to discuss the occurrence of such weights
in South America. What follows is largely a report on two papers, the first
by Nordenskiöld, in Man, vol. 30 (1930), the other by von Hornbostel,
in Anthropos, vol. 26 (1931).
The discussion is concerned mainly with two series, S and P, of stones
introduced by Nordenskiöld in his article ("The Ancient Peruvian System
of Weights"). S is a series of 13 stones found with a balance; Ρ has 9 stones.
Both series were found in bags. S consists of 9 stones S1 closely in the ratio
1 : 3 : 3 : 5 : 10 : 12 : 15 : 18 : 18 ; and 4 stones S2 in the ratio 5:9:10:18 (with a slightly
different norm). Nordenskiöld dismissed S as post-Columbian; but
Hornbostel concludes (for reasons to be given in a moment) that while S2
is Spanish (it fits with a Spanish norm), 5Ί is pre-Columbian. On the other
hand, Nordenskiöld held that P, and 4 other stones, Xu X2, R, B, were
pre-Columbian (i.e., follow a pre-Columbian norm); and von Hornbostel
agrees.
All the weighing and finding of ratios in Ρ and S were already done by
Nordenskiöld and his collaborators or predecessors. We think these findings
may here be taken as facts.
The 4 stones, Xu X2, R, B, which are in the ratio 1:9:12:15, fit in so
well with Ρ that Nordenskiöld considered them together with Ρ as a single
system; and Hornbostel agrees.
Ρ is divided into the 4 smallest, P2, and the others, /γ They are in the
ratio 1:2:3:4:5:5:15:90:125, but the "1, 2, 3, 4" is not so good, though
the stones 1 and 4 together weigh about 5 as do the stones 2 and 3 together.
For the sake of simplicity we will here set aside P2, keeping Plm The stones
of Pi are in the ratio 5:5: 15:90: 125 or 1 : 1 :3: 18:25.
Hornbostel dismisses S2 as Spanish, but keeps S±, Ργ, P2, Xu X2, R,
Β as pre-Columbian. This makes (13-4) + (5 + 4) + (l + 1) + 1 + 1 =22 stones;
but, as said, we will set aside P2 also, leaving 18.
Series Sl has unit £/=1.53g, where g abbreviates "grams"; P1 has unit
H = 3.72 g to 3.86 g (mean: 3.79). As von Hornbostel notes: (1.53): (3. 825) =
2:5, i.e. ,U'Hh roughly 2 : 5. Hornbostel works in terms of a unit G = U/2 = H/5.
13 Kisch, op. cit., p. 60; Flinders Pétrie, Ancient Weights and Measures, p. 29.
14 M. Lazzarini, "Le bilance romane del museo nazionale e dell'antiquarium commun-
ale di Roma", p. 229.

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188 Α. Seidenberg & I. Casey
The eighteen stones thus closely weigh
2, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 10, 15, 20, 24, 30, 36, 36, 45, 60, 90, 90, 125 G
S, Xlf Ρ, Ρ, S, S, S, P, S, S, S, S, S, X2, R, Β, Ρ, Ρ
respectively; thus, as VON HORNBOSTEL notes, in every case a 2

of IG, where a, b, c are whole numbers.
Let us now get to the differences of opinion, or conclusion,
skiöld and von Hornbostel on the series Sx. The heaviest stones in 5Ί
weigh 27.44 and 27.50 g, respectively, and the heaviest in S2 weighs 29.17 g.
Nordenskiöld notes that the Spanish onza, which played such an important
part in the weighing of gold, weighed 28.716 g. Since 27.44, 27.50 and 29.17
are pretty close to 28.72, Nordenskiöld feels that he "cannot but suppose
that these Indian weights have simply been adapted to the Spanish onza."
Thus although he realized that the norms underlying 5Ί and S2 are slightly
different, and that this is, indeed, the basis for dividing S into 5Ί and S2,
he then blurs this difference in concluding that 5Ί and S2 are both Spanish.
von Hornbostel agrees with Nordenskiöld on the S2, but he notes that
the norm for S2 is about jo of the norm for 5Ί ; and that the Babylonians
had two successive norms, an older and a newer, in the ratio 20:21, namely,
gold minas of 821.5 g (max.) and 862.6 g respectively and that V30 of the
older gold mina is 27.38 g, i.e., about the weight of the heaviest stones in
5Ί; while V30 of the newer gold mina is 28.753 g, i.e., nearly the Spanish
onza of 28.716 g. 15 VON HORNBOSTEL concludes that both norms come from
Babylonia : the Indian norm from the older, the Spanish norm from the newer,
standard.
According to VON HORNBOSTEL, the Japanese in 1875 had a unit, the
momme, of weight 3.7565 g and the Chinese still today have a unit of weight
3.778. These are to be compared with the 6xlx6 part of the older Babylonian
gold-mina, i.e., with 3.80 g. The 5-stones in Ρ weigh 3.72 g and 3.86; the 5-stone
in X weighs 3.89 g. These correspond to the unit H. Thus the Japanese, Chinese,
and Peruvians have units all close to 3.80 g.
Perhaps the reader will feel uneasy with von Honbostel's manipulations.
As a rougher index he may consider, however, that all the weights in Si9
Pu Xu X2, R, and Β are 2a3b5c-multiples of the unit. This suggests a 60-system
underlying the Peruvian weight system; and this points to Babylonia.
15 For the "common Babylonian" gold mina of 821.5 g (max) of "Gudea times"
von Hornbostel, in his paper "Die Herkunft der altperuanischen Gewichtsnorm", refers
(p. 257) to C. Lehmann-Haupt, "Altbabylonisches Maass und Gewicht und deren Wande-
rung", Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, vol. 21 (1899), p. 257. A gold mina is 5/ó of a "weight
mina", so a gold mina of 821.5 g corresponds to a weight mina of 985.8 g. These statements
refer to a "heavy" mina, which is twice a "light" mina. There is also known from Babylonia
a heavy "royal mina" of 1,010 g (cf. Lehmann-Haupt, op. cit., p. 254). The relation,
if any, of the "common mina" and the "royal mina" is not clear. For the factor 21/2o
von Hornbostel refers to Lehmann-Haupt (op. cit., p. 276), who speaks of a "conjec-
ture".

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The unit underlying Px is //, which Nordenskiö

since it does not appear to be related to the Spani
about | U, so (as has been seen) the series 5Ί and
unit. Thus Nordenskiöld, in effect, is involved in a co
ing Si Spanish and Pi Peruvian: they should be judged
Peruvian; VON HORNBOSTEL, as said, judges them bot
As a remark we note, following Nordenskiöld, that the nine stones Si
of weights 1, 3, 3, 5, 10, 12, 15, 18, 18 U total 85 U and that with them
one can get all integral weights between U and 85 U. For example, placing
3 U on the left side and 1 U on the right is equivalent to placing 2 U on
the left. Similarly, with the five stones Ρ χ of weights 1, 1, 3, 18, 25 Η one
can get all integral weights up to 30 H, though one cannot get 31 H. These
facts seem too neat to be accidental.
It is easy to agree with Nordenskiöld when he says: "Exceedingly remark-
able parallels between the higher civilizations of the Old World and that of
western South America is the occurrence of the beam scale, the steelyard, and
weights that are multiples of a unit" (Comparative Ethnological Studies, vol. 9,
p. 46).
II. The Balance
3. Myths and rites related to the balance. The balance is used for weig
but one cannot argue from use to origin. For example, the ellipse is now
used to describe the orbit of the earth about the sun, but this curve had e
for some 2,000 years before Kepler used it as an orbit. An application of
a device (or idea) is an effect of the device (or idea), not a cause. As effects
are multiple, one can get at the cause through the effects only if one considers
all the effects, practical and otherwise. That is why the balance should be
considered not just by itself but in relation to similar devices; and why one
should also consider the non-utilitarian aspects of the balance, especially the
myths and rites bearing on it: in this way, perhaps, one may get a clue to
the original device and the ideas underlying it.
As to the first point - that the balance should be considered in relation
to similar devices - we are in agreement with NORDENSKIÖLD, and only criticize
him for being too narrow, for being content with the first device (other than
the balance) that occurred to him (and also for not bringing in the myths
and rites). Thus at the beginning we, too, thought of the carrying-pole, but
we also thought of the see-saw. Not much later we came upon a form of
lever applied in the Near East and India to get water out of a well. As described
by HOCART (Progress of Man, p. 55), a "beam turns on a pivot between two
uprights; a pail of skin is suspended at one end of the beam over the well;
and the other end is weighted. In India sometimes boys walk up and down
the beam." A similar device, or rather the same with one modification, is
widely used for crushing grain. Instead of a pail of skin, there is a heavy
weight, often a stone. The operator by stepping away from the fulcrum along
the beam lifts the weight up in the air. At the proper place, a basket of grain
is placed on the ground. Then the operator steps forward toward the fulcrum
and the weight falls with a crushing force, onto the grain of course. Often

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there is a helper to keep the basket stead

a support, to keep him from falling off
from China, Japan, Indonesia, and Indoch
husk rice; and from India, Transcaucasia,
Austria, Yugoslavia, Italy, Switzerland, an
ancient Egypt and Babylonia; and can b
China.16 Figure 5 is taken from B. LAU
Han Dynasty.
The see-saw seemed the most promising
is that the see-saw is a plaything and t
that playthings, games, and many other t
are relics of ancient ritual activities. HOC
be traced to serious business, but no authentic case has been produced of
a game arising straight out of a propensity to play."17 This has a ring of
truth for us, especially so as in the course of our reading in the anthropological
literature we have come upon information on swings and spinning tops, and
we think we can see the ritual origin of these; but we will not for the present
enter further into this. However, the situation with the see-saw is somewhat
different : here we start with the see-saw and go to the literature to find informa-
tion on it. Unfortunately, though we have found something, we cannot report
a resounding success. The see-saw has probably been around a long time, but
just how long it is hard to say. The encylopedists speak about playgrounds
and games, and of course about many other things, but they appear not have
heard of the see-saw. 18
Hocart continues: "Many games, however, are played which do not look
as if they could ever have had a serious purpose. Could football ever have
produced food like gardening? Yet we saw that football and lacrosse are in
North America a ritual, that is, a method of producing welfare, including
food." He considers several other examples, and then comes to dancing: "Some
peoples, like the Eddystonians, have no dancing except in connection with
ritual", adding, however, that "dancing never completely loses its serious pur-
pose, for there is almost always an element of display before the other sex."
W.J. Perry (in The Primordial Ocean) has suggested that all team games
arose out of the dual organization. The dual organization is a form of social
organization, found widespread amongst peoples of lower culture, in which
the group, or tribe, is divided into two parts, the so-called moieties: the moieties
marry each other, bury each other, and in general play dual roles in ritual,
in particular, form opposing teams for games. Hocart {Progress of Man, p. 292)
thinks that Perry is probably right, but Lowie {op, cit., p. 166) pooh-pooh's
the whole idea, asking (in effect): How can a competitive ball game be played
16 P. Leser, "Westöstliche Landwirtschaft", in Festschrift Publication d'Hommage
offerte au P.W.Schmidt.
17 Α. Μ. Hocart, Progress of Man, p. 292.
18 M.Guichard, De la Sensation à la Methode de Mesure, vol. 1, p. 28, suggests
that the balance originated from the see-saw: "La balance, instrument extrêmement ancien,
a peut-être été à l'origine un jeu d'enfant; un tronc d'arbre oscillant sur un autre et
un enfant à chaque extrémité: voilà la balance ... ."

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Fig. 5. Tread-Mill (kang tui)
without two teams? LowiE was a respected and ho

the University of California they have a museum n
invented a labor-saving device in anthropology (per
the great amount of work he did in the field). To a
not look for or at the evidence or devise hypothese
the correct rhetorical question to ask. For example, o
one asks: How else would one weigh things? Of c
balance, but metal is a rather late acquisition of ma
Men, and women, are everywhere symmetric and h
An appeal to psychic unity or to the limitation of
such principle, shows that it would be a wonder if
balance. The equal-arm balance is in all respects the s

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it was first. The difficulty of finding s

soon impelled men to look for improvem
in the same way, they came to the stee
steelyard occurs both in the Old and
must keep a respectable distance from
Hocart & Perry.
a. The Contest. Let us then look at the evidence. Some of this can at
times be repetitious, but that at least can help us get the distributions.
In the Iliad, XXII, 1. 208, Achilles and Hector are fighting. Zeus brings
out his golden scales and sets lots (" keres "), one for Hector, one for Achilles,
onto the pans. That of Hector sinks toward Hades and Hector falls, slain
by Achilles.
Fig. 6. Kerostasy on an ancient Greek vase.
Other references in Homer are: Iliad Will 69, XVI 658, XIX 223f.
Aeschylus had a tragedy, "The Weighing of Souls", which has been lost,
but Plutarch gives the title ("Psychostasia") and a summary. The theme
is the same as that found in Homer: two warriors are fighting and there
is a predetermination of who will lose by means of a balance (cf. L. Kretzen-
BACHER, Die Seelenwaage, p. 30).
One can distinguish in several ways the theme of the Book of the Dead
and the Homeric theme, though both share the idea of fate being determined
by a balance. In the Book of the Dead, the weighing has an ethical character,
there is a standard (the Feather of Maat), and there is only one soul (or
heart rather) involved; in Homer, the weighing is beyond good and evil, there
are two men involved, and quite simply the one who sinks dies. The Greeks,
up till late times, appear to know only the Homeric theme, though Aeschylus,
after describing a particularly grisly murder, makes a reference to the Balance
of Justice (or Right) (Kretzenbacher, p. 33).

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Kretzenbacher {op. cit., p. 25) calls the Weighing

Egyptian judgement) psychostasy, whereas the decision
he calls kerostasy (though some authors use the word
root stasy means position. J. HARRISON has discusse
according to her, one of the meanings is eidolon or im
mean something like: (decision by) position of images.
The Homeric theme appears to be portrayed on a
in Cyprus, dated 1300-1100 B.C. (Kretzenbacher, p
the interpretation of M.P. NiLSSON {Homer and M
this has been disputed by A. Evans {The Palace of
The theme is explicitly depicted on an Etruscan m
p. 34). Vergil knows it: to decide the fate between
"Jupiter himself held up a pair of scales, carefully c
the balance ; and then he placed in it the differing destin
to decide which one should come happy from the ord
should bring death swinging down" {Aeneid XII, 720ff
b. The Judgement. The judgement in yonder wo

known to Zoroastrianism {cf. Kretzenbacher, p. 50 or
logies of the Ancient World, p. 359, where J. Dresde
the Pahlavi text known as Mënôk ι Xrat). On the fou
has left the body it comes to the lofty and awful Brid
it submits to being weighed by the righteous Rašn
over the bridge, which appears to be one parasang br
deeds come to meet him in the form of a young g
fair than any girl on earth. Eventually it reaches the real
If it is damned, it goes elsewhere.
The Bible has several references. The clearest is Jo
me be weighed in an even balance, that god may kno
also Proverbs 16, 2; 21, 2; 24, 12 (God weighs the hea
"Mené, mené, tekel, upharsin" means, according to
"Count, count, weigh, divide" or "Counted, counted,
ly, Daniel (5, 28 f), speaking to the king, says: Me
has been counted and finished : Tekel, i.e., you have be
and found wanting: Upharsin, i.e., your kingdom has
and given to the Medes and Persians.
The Koran, 21 :47, reads:
And We will set up the balance of justice on the da
so that no soul will be wronged aught [even to e
a mustard seed] . . .
The Tibetan Buddhists know, or at least in the eig

the soul judgement in the balance (Kretzenbacher p.
duced by Kretzenbacher, a steelyard is being used
we know of where the steelyard (rather than the eq
19 J.Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Relig

The root hero also means wax ; below we make a remark on th

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in the Judgement; though Sir JOSHU

a steelyard; and a medal struck in th
Altenburg also shows the steelyard
cit., pp. 77-78), represents the burden
Kretzenbacher's book is largely devo
in Christianity, East and West, early
are occasional references to things fu
of the dead in yonder world. There a
in art and literature. Thus the facade of the Cathedral at Amiens in France
shows the world judgement, and the balance is prominent (cf. Kretzenbach
pp. 150 and 153). Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV (end) has God employi
the balance.
The ancient Vedic rites described in the Satapatha Brahmana took place
in a large trapezoidal area called the Mahavedi, or sometimes simply the Vedi.
In the Satapatha Brahmana XI, 2, 7, 33 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 44,
p. 45) we read :
"Now as to that balance, the right (south) edge of the Vedi. Whatever
good deed man does, that is inside the Vedi; and whatever evil deed he
does, that is outside the Vedi. Let him therefore sit down, touching the
right edge of the Vedi; for, indeed, they place him on the balance in yonder
world ; and whichever of the two will rise, 20 that he will follow, whether
it be the good or the evil. And, verily, whosoever knows this, mounts the
balance even in this world, and escapes being placed in the balance in
yonder world; for his good deed rises, and not his evil deed."
So here at last we have a balancing rite, and not just a myth. It is good
to find such a rite, as otherwise our view that the Judgement myth is the
counterpart of a rite would be met with skepticism. 21
Judgement by means of balance occurred in ancient India, as is shown
by the law-book of Narada. According to the translator, J. Jolly, the composi-
tion of the book dates to about the fifth century A.D. The accused, after
20 Literally, will force the other side down.

21 The Agnicayana is a great 12-day Vedic rite. We had thought (along with others)
that it had been extinct for some 2000 years, but it appears still occasionally to be performed.
Professor Frits Staal, of the University of California, filmed a performance of it in
the spring of 1975, and we have had the good fortune of viewing some 8 hours of it.
At one point the head priest takes the Sacrificer over to the edge of the Mahavedi, where
the Sacrificer appears to straddle the edge, one foot inside, one outside the Mahavedi.
The accompanying text in Professor Staal's Aitarãtra Agnicayana, p. 62, reads :
" U[dgatar] prompts Yjajamãna] to repeat formulas. With : mã svargal lokâd avacchaitsïh
("Don't be separated from the heavenly worlds"), he makes him step inside [the]
M[ahavedi]. With: mãsmãd ("Not from this (World)"), he makes him step outside . . ."
Thus this rite does not appear to be a balancing rite: at best - stretching a point -
the Sacrificer' s attachment to the heavenly world is weighed against his attachment to
this world. We would conjecture, however, that the rite was originally a balancing rite;
and that the accompanying myth, which said so, has been lost, being replaced by a myth
which obscures the original significance of the rite.

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proper preparations, including a bath, is put (still we

into one of the scales and is balanced against stone
After that, the accused descends. The judge admonishes
cations and fastens a writing on his head. The accused,
prayers to the Balance, then ascends the scale again,
the scale in hand, makes an invocation to the Balance. Thus the accused is
weighed a second time. If he rises, he is undoubtedly innocent; if he falls,
he is pronounced guilty. There is the third possibility, namely, that he does
neither. The situation here is not altogether clear: NARADA merely says he
cannot be acquitted.
The balance is constructed in accordance with certain specifications and
with some care, and the weighings are supervised by goldsmiths, merchants,
or others experienced in the art of weighing, though it is impossible to say
how sensitive the balance was. To obtain a level, water is poured on the beam,
and if it does not trickle down, the balance is considered level. One will note
that a weight has been added to the accused, namely, the writing fastened
to his head; on the other hand, probably some weight was lost as a result
of his clothes drying. So it looks very much as though it were a toss-up.
In England in 1759, a woman, Susannah Haynokes, was absolved of
the accusation of being a witch by undergoing the ordeal of being weighed
against a bible and by outweighing it.22
Tylor (op. cit., p. 153f) discusses the Hindu judgement by balance. He
expresses the opinion that "this is pure magic, the ideal weight of guilt being
by mere absurd association of ideas transferred to material weight in a pair
of scales." We cannot agree. Does guilt, or sorrow, really have a weight?
even a real "ideal" weight? We cannot see that it does. Rather, our view
is that such phraseology (as weighted with guilt, or sorrow, or having a heavy
heart, or a light heart) derives from rites in which guilt, say, is determined
by weight. Tylor has it backwards : first there is the rite, with material weights
in a pair of scales ; and these are subsequently transformed into ideal weights.
Or, it might be claimed, these expressions are mere metaphors. But in a
metaphor something is compared with something else. When we do something
with a heavy heart, what is being compared with what?
Let us try to analyze a bit what happens when we see justice symbolized
by a blindfolded goddess holding up a balance. We don't make up this scene;
it is there independent of our consciousness. What goes through our minds
as we view it? We know that the balance is symmetric, that equality is built
into it; we presume it can be maneuvered a bit, but any such bias would
be removed by blindfolding the operator. The history of the balance is not
in our minds, directly or indirectly. Yet we realize that this symbol was once
no mere symbol but that judgement with a balance was a definite rite.
The balance as symbol of justice, it may be remarked, is vastly older than
the Judgement Scene in the Book of the Dead: Budge, at least, appears to
22 E. B. Tylor, "Ordeals and Oaths", Proceeding of the Royal Institution, vol. 8 (1875),
p. 154. C.Hole, Witchcraft in England (p. 87), gives instances of witch-weighing in 1780
and 1792.

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refer the Judgement Scene to the XV

whereas J.H. Breasted places The Eloquent Peasant, which we will cite in
a moment, in the IXth or Xth Dynasty.23 The "eloquent peasant", applying
for justice to the grand steward, addresses him as follows: "...Execute pun-
ishment on him to whom punishment is due, and none shall be like thy correct-
ness. Do the balances err? Does the scale-beam swerve to one side? ... Speak
not falsehood, for thou art the balances. Swerve not, for thou art a correct
sum. Lo, thou art at one with the balances. If they tip (falsely) thou tippest
(falsely) . . . Thy tongue is the index (of the balances), thy heart is the weight,
thy two lips are the beam thereof."24 Breasted remarks: "These comparisons
of the grand steward's character and functions with the balances appear repeated-
ly in the speech of the peasant. It is a comparison which the great nobles
of the Feudal Age were fond of using on their tomb stelae; e.g., BAR
[ = Breasted's Ancient Records of Egypt] I, 745, 531. ... They form a symbol
which became widely current in Egyptian life, till the scales appear as the
graphic means of depicting the judgement of each soul in the hereafter. "
Weighing itself is vastly older, indeed, prehistoric, as Flinders Pétrie
has found weights in prehistoric graves (presuming, of course, that what he
says are weights really are such).25
Sir Arthur J. Evans has remarked that at Mycenae the balance was "a
natural emblem of stewardship".26 One may wonder how natural the emblem
is, and whether it is not, rather, a derivative of the Egyptian steward's fondness
of being compared to a balance.
The balance appears as a symbol on some Roman gravestones (Kretzen-
BACHER, p. 47).
Speaking of graves, we note that small balances have been found in Mero-
vingian graves and also in those of the Vikings.27 Small balances, golden ones,
have also been found at Mycenae.28 The golden pans were decorated, in
one case with butterflies and in another with flowers. Since the butterfly could
symbolize the soul, at least in later Greek thought, it has been surmized by
Evans {op. cit., vol. 3, p. 151) that the weighing of souls was known at Mycenae.
We recall that small balances were also found in Peruvian graves.
Now there is nothing surprising about finding balances in graves : burying
things with the deceased is a widespread and ancient custom. Still, we may
23 Budge, The Book of the Dead, p. 21 ; Breasted, The Development of Religious

Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 217.
z* Breasted, op. cit., p. 221.
25 Pétrie, in his Widom of the Egyptians, p. 23, says: "Almost at the beginning of
the Amratian civilization a stone weight is found carefully wrapped in leather, and put
in the hands of the dead. This weight agrees with ten others of the Amratian civilization,
all being on the "gold" standard of historic times, beqa. In the Gerzean civilization other
weights are found, of the standard known as daric, Babylonian". See also his Ancient
Weights and Measures, pp. 11, 18. Pétrie describes a balance, which he thinks is prehistoric,
that has a beam only 3.35 inches long.
XD The Palace of Minos, vol. 4:2, p. 659.
27 KISCH, op. cit., p. 41.
28 H. Schliemann, Mycenae, p. 197.

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ask why the balances were deposited with the dec

balance was actually employed in some death rite, an
with the deceased. Generally, the assumption is that
the deceased will be of use for him in yonder world
the things as before he used them in this world. Th
balances, but another possibility is that the decea
show the authorities that he is an honest man, or th
prescribed rites. Indeed, the Peruvian balances, thoug
ances, seem much too accurate for practical purposes
seem purely symbolic. A similar suggestion has been
miniature balances.29 If these conjectures are correc
balance get to Peru from the Old World, but also the s
ing the balance came along with it.
Kretzenbacher associates the Balance of the Judgem
Balance, which is (or was, rather) the sign at the
is that just as the Balance stands at the door of the u
stands in the sky as the sun enters the inauspicious half
is in agreement with some astrological notions. W
but as another possibility we would suggest that a
in the air, and the balance may represent this equalit
to be the case in China, where, we are told, "at th
when Yang and Yin hold the balance, all measures ar
In his report of 1894 to the British Association, T
The conception of weighing in a spiritual balance i
dead, which makes its earliest appearance in the
traced into a series of variants, serving to draw line
the Vedic and Zoroastrian religions, extending fro
Western Christendom. The associated doctrine of t
which separates the good, who pass over, from th
the abyss, appears first in ancient religion reachin
extremities of Asia and Europe. By these mystical
are practically constituted, connecting the great re
serving as lines along which their interdependence is to be followed out
As far as the Bridge of the Dead is concerned,

land, North America, and South America, for he
in his "Early History of Mankind", pp. 357-361,
Tylor appears not to have followed up his annou
treatment of the topic mentioned. It would have
and discussion, but for the balance, at any rate,
the areas he mentioned.
29 See S. G.F.Brandon, The Judgement of the Dead, p. 78. Miniature balances can
be functional; for a picture of a small steelyard no longer than a thumb see KiscH,
op. cit., p. 62.
30 E. M. von Hornbostel, "Die Masznorm als kulturgeschichtliches Forschungsmit-
tel", p. 304, after J. J.M. Groot, Univers ismus , pp. 25ff.

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c. The Offering. This concludes our

Judgement theme, and we will now g
whose prototype is the rite of the Ag
Kretzenbacher has a chapter on th
temple inscription tells of King K
himself and his family weighed. He th
in gold, bronze, and silver to the po
health and for that of his family. Sim
la. Montesquieu mentioned in his "Per
Mogul of China let himself be weighe
in the sixteenth century, the world
of the curious custom of the Hindus w
of Tinagogo "in order to fulfill a vow
In the sixteenth century, Phillip I
sick infant son Don Carlos, that if th
his weight in gold and seven times
found some cloisters; and according
vow was fulfilled {op. cit., p. 180).
The custom of weight offering was p
in the Alps and in Bavaria, as we le
of 1727. Of course, the offering was
child in wax. An example from 1487
was cured of his gout and Kaiserin
In the Eifel district, in Germany, "if
his parents take to the church an o
the child ..." (R. Briffault, The Mothe
ry, Rohese, the wife of Gilbert Beke
son Thomas each year on his birthday
which she gave to the poor" (J.R. G
People, vol. 1, p. 196). The weight offe
way places in Italy (Kretzenbacher,
"The story is told in the Talmud
to dedicate to the Temple the daily
an equal amount of gold" {cf. S. Ga
a chapter in Babylonian mathematics"
In 1532 Kaiser Karl V had official ba
of dealing with the devil, or some such t
of suspicion by getting yourself we
could get a document declaring you
has almost a modern ring to it.
Kretzenbacher {op. cit., p. 182) thin
the Judgement on the balance. The
to forestall one's judgement in yon
idea of influencing events in yonde
seen, the idea enters explicitly into on
theme and the Offering theme are qu
is a winning and a losing, even often
there is no winning or losing, no cont

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lence is prominent ; in the Judgement there is no such

of equilibrium is present in that the balance should
these differences show up in opposed aspects of the bala
brium is the central feature - in all our Judgemen
falling decides, and exact balance is even an anomaly
exact balance is essential.
W. RlDGEWAY (Origin of Currency and Weight Standards, p. 118), though
missing its significance, mentions "a curious simile [cf. Iliad XII, 433-7] wherein
a fight between the Trojans and the Achaeans is likened to the weighing of
wool:
'So they held on as an honest, hardworking woman holds the scales, who
holding up a weight and wool apart lifts them up, making them equal,
in order that she may win a humble pittance for her children: thus their
fight and war hung evenly until what time Zeus gave masterful glory to
Hector, Priam's son.'"31
RlDGEWAY's deduction from the passage is that wool was weighed in Homer-
ic times. And, indeed, it is noteworthy how little one knows about what was
weighed in antiquity. The evidence, as given by RlDGEWAY, usually refers to
metals, primarily gold. Thus in the Homeric poems RlDGEWAY finds only
gold and wool mentioned as being weighed. He cannot do much better with
the Old Testament: the weighing of gold, silver, brass, and iron are mentioned
(as in Gen. 23, 16; Joshua 7, 21; Judges 8, 26; 1 Chron. 21, 25; 2 Sam. 24,
24; 1 Kings 9, 26-28); lead, too (Zech 5, 8). Beyond that he finds that "spices
such as myrrh, cinnamon, calamus and cassia (Exod. 30, 23) were sold by
weight, being as costly as gold. " He cannot find that wool was weighed, though
he mentions Absalom, who every year cut his hair and weighed it: Absalom
"polled his hair (for it was at every year's end that he polled it: because
the hair was heavy on him, therefore he polled it): he weighed the hair of
his head at two hundred shekels after the king's weight (2 Sam. 14, 26). " Finally,
once, he finds food - meat - weighed, though only in clearly ritual circumstances
(cf. Ezekiel 4, 10-11 ; see also 4, 16). In Lev. 26, 26, we may add, God threatens
that bread will be delivered by weight if the Israelites go contrary to him.
For Egypt he can do no better: "even drugs were not weighed by the Egyptians
in the time of Rameses II (XlXth Dynasty). The physicians prescribed by mea-
sure, as we learn [following F.L. Griffith] from the Medical papyrus Ebers."
V. Gordon Childe (Man Makes Himself, p. 166) speaking of a painting from
Old Kingdom times, says: "Here again we see overseers weighing out quantities
of material to the craftsmen and scribes noting down the amounts issued",
but what these materials were he does not say. More evidence on what was
weighed in ancient times will be given below.
In relation to Absalom's cutting and weighing of his hair, J.G. Frazer,
with his usual industry, supplied RlDGEWAY (op. cit., p. 120) with the following
information :
"As to the cutting off of a child's hair and weighing it against gold or
silver, the facts are these.
31 The weighing of wool derives, as we shall explain, from the Offering, so Homer
appears to be confusing the Offering and Contest themes.

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(1) Among the Hararî in Eastern A

old, its hair is cut off and weighed a
is then divided among the female re
Beiträge zur Ethnographie und Anth
(Leipzig, 1886), p. 70.)
(2) Mohammed's daughter Fátima g
hair in silver. (W. Robertson Smith,
p. 153.)
(3) Among the Mohammedams of the Punjaub a boy's hair is shaved off
on the 7th or 3rd day after birth, or sometimes immediately after birth.
Rich people give alms of silver coins equal in weight to the hair. {Punjab
Notes and Queries, I, No. 66.)
(4) When the Hindus of Bombay dedicate a child to any god or purpose,
they shave its head and weigh the hair against gold or silver. {Id., II, No. 11.)
(5) In the inland districts of Padang (Sumatra) three days after birth the
child's hair is cut off and weighed. Double the weight of hair in money
is given to the priest. (Pistorias, Studien over de inlandische Huisponding
in de Padangsche Bovenlanden, p. 56; Van Hasselt, Volksbeschrijving van
Midden-Sumatra, p. 268.)
(6) There is the Egyptian custom, for which we have the evidence in Herodo-
tus, II. 65 and Diodorus, I. 8."
Ridgeway compares wool weighing, Absalom's weighing of his hair, and
the above infant hair weighing, justly in our opinion. Thus Ridgeway thinks
that the habit of weighing a child's hair against gold or silver may have suggested
the employment of scales for wool {op. cit., p. 120).
Note that just as in the myth of the Egyptian Judgement, so here in the
hair-cutting rites, a part of the body is weighed.
Moreover there are widespread beliefs that the soul, or the strength, or
the life, or some other vital aspect of a person lies in his hair. Many of us
are familiar with the story of Samson and Delilah, and know that Samson's
strength lay in his (uncut) hair. The theme has been dealt with by Frazer
in his book Folklore in the Old Testament. For organizational purposes, he
starts with a theme known from the bible and then gives its distribution over
the earth. For example, "The natives of Amboyna, an island in the East Indies,
used to think that their strength was in their hair and would desert them
if their locks were shorn... [Among] the Aztecs of Mexico, when witches and
wizards had done their evil deeds, and the time came to put an end to their
detestable life, someone laid hold of them and cropped the hair on the crown
of their heads, which took from them all their power of sorcery, and then
it was that by death they put an end to their odious existence." Etc. On
p. 670 of The Golden Bough (abridged ed.) Frazer speaks of the belief in
an "external soul", the belief that the soul can be deposited in an object,
for example, a stone, separate from the body; and in particular he gives the
example of King Nisus of Megara, who had a purple or golden hair on the
middle of his head, and it was fated that whenever this hair was pulled out
the king should die.
Our view is that such beliefs arise from the necessity, or theory, that an
equivalent must be found in ritual for the "sacrificer," or, let us say, the

76.64.14.103 on Fri, 06 Nov 2020 14:41:58 UTC
principal. Thus in ritual the principal is identified

stone, or half a shekel, or his hair. The belief that s
or receptacles of the soul, is a reflection in the min
From this point of view the ritual weighing of hair
the ,soul. Thus a connection has been made between
and the Offering theme.
Though we still do not understand the Feather of M
ment is deprived of its baffling character if we replace t
with his hair.
d. The Balancing of Heaven and Earth. There is a fourth theme, like the
Offering in that it involves equilibrium but otherwise quite different: there
is what we may call The Balancing of Heaven and Earth theme. In the Bible,
we often see God weighing large parts of the world: thus Isaiah 40, 12 asks
rhetorically :
Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out
heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure,
and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
And in Job 28, 24-25 we read that
... he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven:
To make the weight for the winds ; and he weigheth 3 2 the waters by measure.
We dare say that the "weight for the winds" is the earth. We can almost
prove this, for Milton in the passage previously referred to {Paradise Lost,
Book IV, end) speaks of
The pendulous round Earth with balanced air
In counterpoise . . .
placed in his golden scales by the Eternal himself, of course. And we don't
suppose Milton made this image up for himself: half of it we have located
in the Bible, and the other half must be there, too.33
32 The original word here (spelled: tav, yodh, caph, nun) means "planned" or "mea-
sured", so the passage does not at all refer to the weighing of water.
33 The passage from Milton more fully reads:
"... The Eternal, to prevent such horrid fray,
Hung forth in Heaven his golden scales, yet seen
Betwixt Astrea and the Scorpion sign,
Wherein all things created first he weighed
The pendulous round Earth with balanc'd air
In counterpoise, now ponders all events,
Battles and realms : in these he puts two weights,
The sequel each of parting and of fight :
The latter quick up flew and kick' d the beam ;
Which Gabriel spying thus bespake the fiend."
According to Islamic commentators, the angel Gabriel holds the scales of judgement,
one hanging over Paradise, the other over Hell, and they are so vast that they can hold
heaven and earth (T.P.Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, art. MIZÄN (=balance), p. 353).
In Christianity, too, Gabriel (along with Michael) was associated with the balance
of judgement {cf. Kretzenbacher, op. cit., pp. 54, 73, 174, 194).

76.64.14.103 on Fri, 06 Nov 2020 14:41:58 UTC
In any event, in a hymn introducto

of
all ye gods of the Temple of the Soul, who weigh heaven and earth in
the balance..34
And elsewhere in the Book of the Dead Thoth says:

I have equally balanced the Divine Pair,
I have put a stop to their eternal strife. .35
Unfortunately, we have no rite for the Balancing of Heaven and Earth theme;
but it is easy to imagine one.
At a late stage we found a weighing at Creation, and moreover one in
which the wind is weighed. According to Frazer {Folklore in the Old Testament,
p. 7), "the natives of Nias, an island to the south-west of Sumatra, have a
long poem descriptive of the creation, which they recite at the dances performed
at the funeral of a chief. In this poem, which is arranged in couplets after
the style of Hebrew poetry, the second verse repeating the idea of the first
in somewhat different language, we read how the supreme god, Luo Zaho,
bathed at a celestial spring which reflected his figure in its clear water as
in a mirror, and how, on seeing his image in the water, he took a handful
of earth as large as an egg, and fashioned out of it a figure like one of those
figures of ancestors which the people of Nias construct. Having made it, he
put it in the scales and weighed it; he weighed also the wind, and having
weighed it, he put it on the lips of the figure which he had made; so the
figure spoke like a man or child, and God gave him the name of Sihai. Etc."
4. The evidence in the light of a hypothesis. So far, no see-saw! Finally
we came across the following passage in M. GRANET's Chinese Civilization,
pp. 202-203 :
The royal festival of the long night seems to be a development of the festivals
of the communal house. It is rich in dramatic, not to say horrible rites,
for it marks the culmination point of a winter liturgy in which by the
help of jousts, ordeals, sacrifices and sacraments, merits are classified and
the hierarchy is founded. Some of these jousts and ordeals are remarkable.
There was the test of a see-saw, which was used to weigh talents, and
the test of a greased pole whose victims were consumed in a funeral pile.
Shou-sin, the sinister king .. cast and chased tall pillars for the test of
the see-saw or of the ascension .. . .
As far as the see-saw is concerned, this is sufficiently vague. What could the
test of the see-saw have been? We have tried to imagine it. Could it have
been that two contestants were placed on a see-saw and the one who sank,
or, alternatively, the one who rose, won; so that the winner would be the
heaviest of the contenders, or the lightest? This is conceivable, but has seemed
34 Budge, p. 5.
35 P. Renouf, Egyptological and Philological Essays, vol. 4, pp. 218-19. Here the Di-
vine Pair are Horus = Day and Situ = Night.

76.64.14.103 on Fri, 06 Nov 2020 14:41:58 UTC
too tame to us. So we went on wondering for qu

our solution, or suggestion, in a moment, and meanw
to try to imagine how to make the see-saw an instrum
Then we found the following rite, described by Fr
ogy of the Bella Coola Indians [of British Columbia]
"Every year, at the time of the winter solstice, th
shall die during the ensuing year. Two beings
xma'noas are placed on the ends of a long plank, w
its center and swings like a see-saw. Then all the
are called to stand near the ends of the plank. Wh
beings falls down from the plank, the person stand
than the one standing at the opposite end. "
When we came across this rite (and we had been lo
we saw a hypothesis for the origin of the balance: it
and the employment of the see-saw as a device for
stand at the ends of a see-saw and start see-sawing.
contestant to make his opponent lose balance and fa
first to fall off loses. This is simple enough: perhap
seeing it was that the see-saw as we know it has ha
from falling off - they are sitting, too, not standi
now imagine, had no handles, but were merely planks; and one see-sawed
on them standing up.
Speaking of ancient China, Granet says: "Of all the customs I have been
able to observe, there is none, if I may say so, concerning which there are
not reasons for saying that it was the occasion of a contest or a competition. " 36
We have pie-eating contests, and we assume an environment or situation in
which anything was liable to be turned into a contest. Since it was noticed
that a plank supported at its middle goes up and down, the potentiality of
the set-up was seen as an instrument for a contest, a ritual contest. And once
the see-saw inserted itself into ritual, its future was assured : the ritual in ancient
times protected inventions, as the laboratory does in ours.
It may be that two men playing around with a plank saw the possibility
of a see-saw, i.e., invented it: but the precise origin of the see-saw is no part
of our thesis. We start from the see-saw. Nor would we deny that those who
see-sawed got some fun out of it: but that was not its purpose. Its purpose
was the serious one of deciding between two contestants in a ritual situation.
a. The Contest. Let us now go over our evidence and see whether our
hypothesis sheds any light on it. If we look at the device described above
for crushing grain, we see that it is but a minor variant on the see-saw; and
moreover the operator operates much as the contestants in the hypothetical
see-saw contests would operate.
Look now at the Greek myths for deciding the outcome of a fight. Though
the balance there is a true balance, its function hardly differs from that of
a see-saw; and, of course, the fight is a contest. So we can compare the see-saw
36 M. Granet, Festivals and Songs of Ancient China, p. 90.

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contest part for part with the balanc

the difference between falling and fallin
form the way from see-saw contests to k
Although we came to our hypothesis u
Bella Coola rite, it is to be observed that their rite does not appear to be
a contest between two men. This is indicated by Boas's phraseology: "two
beings ... are placed. " Thus the Bella Coola rite looks like an early version
of kerostasy, with the see-saw in place of the balance.37
b. Good and bad, light and heavy. The see-saw contest is a thing of skill,
but the kerostasy of the Greeks is a mere lottery, a matter of chance. Let
us suppose, then, for historical reasons that we may not be able to detail,38
that the see-saw contest has become (or is about to become) a lottery, and
ask: Why should falling (or perhaps rising) be the bad outcome?
Previously we mentioned the dual organization: in the dual organization
(as mentioned), the community is divided into two groups, the moieties, and
in general the moieties play complementary roles in ritual.
In the dual system everything in the world, or nearly everything it sometimes
seems, is assigned to one of the two moieties; thus, for example, land to one
side, water to the other. And each side of a polar, or otherwise 2-fold, concept
is likewise assigned : for example, sky-earth, east-west, right-left, noble-common,
gentle-rough, peace-war, light-dark, summer-winter, male-female, etc.
Ancient civilized thought also shows a pervasive duality. The Pythagoreans,
for example, had two coordinate or parallel series of principles consisting of
ten pairs of opposites, thus :
finite infinite
odd even
one many
right left
male female
still moving
straight bent
light darkness
good bad
square oblong
37 We have another case in which, perhaps, kerostasy is a living instit

chee, of northeastern Asia, use a "swinging-stone", i.e., a pendulum,
W.Bagoras, The Chuckchee, Memoirs Amer. Museum of Natural Histo
p. 484). Β agoras (p. 486) tells of the following incident. He happen
balance, which was observed with great interest by the people. They
for telling the future, and one native put questions to it concerning
was to take place the next day. It is difficult for us to believe that
direct reaction to a balance. Bagoras thinks that they assimilated t
swinging object, to a pendulum. Another possibility is that they knew
(Incidentally, divining pêndula still exist in our society, and one of
boy reading an advertisement for them in the magazine Popular Mechan
38 Below (p. 211). We make a conjecture on how, and why, the actu
contest was converted into a symbolic contest.

76.64.14.103 on Fri, 06 Nov 2020 14:41:58 UTC
(Aristotle, Met., I, 5, 986). Similarly, there are two p

the y in, underlying Chinese philosphy: Yang is the p
and life, et alia, Yin, of cold, darkness, and death, et
It looks then as if the transformation from see-sa
took place in an environment in which notions of du
one who falls, say, loses because down corresponds to
good-bad (and to death in the pair life-death). For G
told this in the passage from the Iliad, XXII refer
"sinks toward Hades". So for Greece: down is bad. In India, too, as seen
from the law-book of Närada, down is bad ; and in the Vedic rite described,
up wins. Now one might think that if dual notions determine which is the
bad outcome, down or up, then as the idea spread, one would find the same
choice everywhere {i.e., everywhere to which the idea spread). That is not so,
and one often finds a twist in the choice of the opposites. For example, usually
with the pairs heaven-earth and male-female, heaven corresponds to male, earth
to female, but in Egypt the earth, Geb, is a god and the sky, Nut, is a goddess
(they are the parents of Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Nephthys). Another example:
usually odd numbers are lucky (or good, as with the Pythagoreans) and even
ones unlucky, though with the natives of Central Sumatra, the even numbers
are lucky, the odd unlucky.39 We would explain this as follows: the series
of opposites is the result of some underlying thought, the result is communicated
{i.e., diffused) but the underlying thought is not, and the result is mislearned.
Or there may have been a change in the underlying theory. Or there may
be some other explanation, but the fact remains that the pairs do get twisted.
As we have seen, for the Greeks and Indians down is bad - bad hereabouts
means loses ; and it may be of interest to see how things stand with the others.
With Vergil, from the passage referred to, down is bad. In Christian art
one often sees the soul in one pan and devils pulling down on the other,
so down is good; this also checks with SUSANNAH HAYNOKES's experience.
In Egypt, the eloquent peasant calls the grand steward "weighty", so we may
presume down is good ; moreover in the Book of the Dead, Chapter I, it becomes
clear, especially with the elucidation by Budge {op. cit., p. 44), that the good
result at the Judgement is for the heart not to be outweighed by the Feather
of Maãt, so here, too, down is good. With the Hebrews, Daniel tells the
king that he has been "weighed and found wanting", so presumably down
is good. In the Koran, 20 : 103 {cf. also 7 : 9) we read : " And those whose balances
are light, these then are those who have caused loss to their souls ; in Gehema
they abide." For the Chinese, to get any kind of conclusion, we are obliged
to analyze their method for determining the winter solstice (which we have
tried to do, with, however, a doubtful result). In this method charcoal is placed
on one side of the scales, earth on the other, making them balance. "When
the change of vapours at the solstice took place the charcoal was heavier than
the earth."40 The earth in one pan we will take to be Earth, and Earth is
Yin. So the charcoal is Yang. Now Yang is born at the winter solstice (Yin,
39 Cf. A. Seidenberg, "The Ritual Origin of Counting", p. 9.

40 L. Hodous, Folkways in China, p. 201 ; see also p. 153.

76.64.14.103 on Fri, 06 Nov 2020 14:41:58 UTC
at the summer) and begins to take ove

down is good. This analysis, howeve
and the Yang have a long history in C
and Yin :Yang = heavy: light is correc
World Conception of the Chinese, p.
Yin-Yang and the theory of the Five E
are: water, fire, metal, wood, earth.
Yin; fire unalloyed Yang: wood is mainly Yang but with an admixture of
Yin; metal is Yin but alloyed with Yang; and earth is sometimes Yin and
sometimes Yang. If we think of charcoal as neutral, it may be that Earth
is rising because Yang takes over in it. Thus up wins, conflicting with the
previous suggestion. A decision on this point would presumably require a knowl-
edge of when the earth-charcoal rite was invented.41
It is noteworthy that the Bella Coola see-saw rite and the Chinese earth-
charcoal rite (as well as, probably, the Chinese see-saw rite, which was a feature
of the winter festival called the "carousel of the long night") took place at
the winter solstice. This suggests a link with rites intended to propitiate the
sun in its combat with the powers of darkness and death. Cf. Lord Raglan,
The Origins of Religion, Chap. XII on the Calendar.
Let us tabulate the results :
Greek : down is bad

Roman : down is bad
Indian: down is bad
Egyptian : down is good
Hebrew: down is good
Mohammedan : down is good
Chinese:
Tibetan : down is good

Bella Coola:
[We get an unexpected

European. Note, too, th
occurs in kerostasy, wh
is good" occurs in psych
bis. Divination by weig
in some evidence which
may be so indirectly. Th
good : bad = light
41 The Tungus near Baika

each mortal will be weigh
white stone weighs less th
one is lighter than the sou
Mythology, in The Mytho
of white and black pebble
at Judgement (Brandon, o
a similar notion (G. Masper

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Thus J.G. Frazer (Pausanias's Description of Greece, vo

instances of " divination by weight". For example, am
who desired the divine guidance on some matter used
and then lifting up a clod or stone judged of the ans
by the apparent weight of the clod or stone : to some
light, to others so heavy that they could hardly s
told which is the favorable sign, but usually with "di
is the favorable answer ; and in a moment we shall give s
that this was so in Greece. Amongst the Eskimo, "w
fasten a heavy stone to a stick; if they can lift it
recovery ... So when the Lapps lifted up the sacred s
their god, if the stone seemed heavier than usual it
was angry; if it felt light, it was a sign he was pr
was a god Taema, who was believed to reside in a
done up in cloth. Before going to battle the people c
it felt heavy, it was a bad omen; if light, it was a goo
obtain in Burma, at Nyoung Oo; and in some parts o
Frazer (vol. 1, pp. 158-159) refers to Pausanias for
the Greeks of "scourging the lads" at the shrine of
stands by them holding the wooden image [of Artem
but if the scourgers lay on lightly because a lad is h
the image grows so heavy in the woman's hands that she can hardly hold
it, and she lays the blame on the scourgers, saying they are weighing her down. "
Thus heavy is bad in Greece.
Similar notions obtain amongst the Chuckchi, the Kamchadal, and the Kor-
yak, all of Northeastern Asia, as well as amongst the Eskimo on both sides
of Bering Strait. Thus amongst the Chuckchi, according to W. BAGORAS ("The
Chuckchi of Northeastern Asia", p. 95), the desires of the deceased are deter-
mined according to the effort needed to move his head: thus the "divination
is performed by near relations of the deceased with the aid of the staff or
crooked wand of horn used for beating the snow from fur clothing. The staff
or wand is tied to the thong binding the head, and the divinator, holding
with his hands the opposite point, asks a question and strives to lift the body.
If the answer is in the negative, the corpse is supposed not to allow his head
to be lifted; if, on the contrary, the answer is an affirmative one, the head
is lifted without effort. In this manner the dead is questioned as to the spot
where it desires to be placed, about the leader of the funeral procession, the
reindeer-team for its funeral sledge, etc. In the same way it is questioned about
the future of the living, about the diseases likely to attack them, and as to
their success in hunting, trading, etc." Other objects are used similarly (loc.
cit., p. 96).
With the Chuckchi, yes : no = light :heavy and also favorable: unfavorable =
light -.heavy. This would yield a contradiction if an affirmative answer would
correspond to an unfavorable result; a way out taken by the Chuckchi is to
make an affirmative answer correspond to a favorable result.
"Among the Kamchadal ... a woman shaman used to sit in a corner, and,
winding a red thread around one of her legs, tried to lift it from the ground.

76.64.14.103 on Fri, 06 Nov 2020 14:41:58 UTC
If the leg seemed heavy to lift, a negat

if it seemed light, the answer was in t
in n. 37, p. 486). E.W. Nelson ("The E
gives a method of prognosis for a m
attached to the end of a stick is tied to
and lifting it by the stick, one judges b
F. Boas ("The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay," p. 135) reports
a similar custom by "head-lifting", though here the heavy head corresponds
to an affirmative reply, the light head to a negative.
Though there are exceptions, on the whole one finds in "divination by
weight" the homology:
light : heavy = good : bad ;
and in kerostasy:
up : down = good : bad.
Thus both orders of phenomena appear to be aspects of the archaic duality

of thought. Now we would say, regarding the balance :
that:
up : down = light : heavy,
so we might conjecture that "divination by weight" and "kerostasy" are related

through the balance; but what the history of this relation is is harder to say,
or to make a conjecture about. From the distributions, the "divination by
weight" looks older; and if so, the homology for kerostasy might result from
that and the realization that the balance can distinguish light and heavy. But
the suggested conclusion from the distributions might well be wrong; and it
may be that "divination by weight" is a degenerate form of kerostasy.
c. The Offering and the Balancing. Let us now look at the evidence for
the Offering theme. All of the evidence is very much like our first example
with the Aga Khan, though some new points come in; and these confirm
our original view that the patron of the ritual is a sacrificer and that the
thing sacrificed is identified with the sacrificer, namely, through weight. In
the votive rituals, that the thing weighed (or, better, balanced) is a sacrifice,
or offering, is completely clear and has been noted by others, for example,
Kretzenbacher (p. 178). We view the balancing as a special way of finding
an equivalent for the sacrificer. And since the fundamental aspect of the balance,
namely, balance, is involved, though weights are not, it seems proper to con-
clude that we are dealing with a very early step in the development of the
balance. Still the question is whether this is the first application of balance.
Why should balance be regarded as equivalence? The see-saw contest does
not really require an apprehension of balance {i.e., of the see-saw): a rough
equality only of the two sides of the see-saw is required (though by the time
we get to kerostasy, we do need exact balance). The evidence on the Balancing
of Heaven and Earth may throw some light on this. We imagine a ritual, the
Creation ritual, in which there are two principals, a male and female, who
are to become the parents of the race. Now men usually outrank women in

76.64.14.103 on Fri, 06 Nov 2020 14:41:58 UTC
religion, but the wife of the top man is an exception

of the race are considered equals. Now we imagine a rit
or candidates for being the principals, are placed
one side, a woman on the other. Contest is a frequen
there is no contest between the principals of the Creation
they are equal: and the see-saw may have been used t
have no direct evidence for this, i.e., no rites, but the
says it clearly enough.
We would suggest that first came the Balancing of
that this balancing in turn suggested how to get an eq
The finding of the equivalent for the sacrificer was t
of the balance.
We come now to the hardest point, namely, how to get from the see-saw
contest to the Judgement. The Judgement obviously involves moral or ethical
notions. Though this is hardly the place to discourse on the development of
our moral notions, still we can probably agree that our notions of ethics differ
from those of the inventor of the balance. For us, the man in the right should
win; but way back, for the inventor of the balance, it may have been that
the man who won was right. He was right by the very fact of winning. J.
HuizlNGA in his Homo Ludens has made this very point, in the course of
which he even mentions the Greek kerostasy. He writes (p. 78):
We moderns cannot conceive justice apart from abstract righteousness, how-

ever feeble our conception of it may be. For us, the lawsuit is primarily
a dispute about right and wrong; winning and losing take only a second
place. Now it is precisely this preoccupation with ethical values that we
must abandon if we are to understand archaic justice. Turning our eyes
from the administration of justice in highly developed civilizations to that
which obtains in less advanced phases of culture, we see that the idea of
right and wrong, the ethical-juridical conception, comes to be overshadowed
by the idea of winning and losing, that is, the purely agonistic conception.
It is not so much the abstract question of right and wrong that occupies
the archaic mind as the very concrete question of winning or losing. Once
given this feeble ethical standard the agonistic factor will gain enormously
in legal practice the further back we go ... ,42 We are confronted by a
mental world in which the notion of decision by oracles, by the judgement
of God, by ordeal, by sortilege - i.e., by play - and the notion of decision
by judicial sentence, fuse in a single complex of thought. Justice is made
subservient- and quite sincerely - to the rules of the game. We still acknowl-
edge the incontrovertibility of such decisions when, failing to make up our
minds, we resort to drawing lots or "tossing up".
Setting aside the reference to play, which for the moment may be regarded
as merely a reference to his own theory, there is nothing here with which
we cannot agree ; nor, indeed, for which one cannot find ample evidence. From
42 The deleted passage reads: "and as the agonistic element increases so does the
element of chance, with the result that we soon find ourserves in the play sphere. "

76.64.14.103 on Fri, 06 Nov 2020 14:41:58 UTC
the point of view expressed, one sees

contest is already an instrument of jud
justice develops, the see-saw develops,
an instrument of skill it becomes an instrument of chance. Thus at least in
broad outline, we can see the way from the see-saw contest to the Judgement
The Judgement involves equilibrium, so we put it after the Balancing. In
the Egyptian form the Judgement involves a standard, so we put it after t
Offering. This order is also indicated for the Indian form of the Judgemen
since in it there is a preliminary balancing, through which an equivalent fo
the accused is found. Thus we get the following diagram:
The see-saw contest
The Balancing of
Heaven and Earth
1
The Offering
The Judgement
Except for one point in connection with weights, this concludes the presenta-
tion of our theory. Though our hypothesis appears to throw light on the facts
surrounding the balance, the reader may feel, as we do, that the hypothesis
rests on scanty evidence of see-saw rituals - only one, or at most two. Still
there may be a good reason why we do not easily find see-saw rituals, namely,
that they have disappeared. The see-saw is there, the grain-crusher is there;
but the rites are gone. Or rather not quite gone! From one point of view,
we regard the Bella Coola see-saw rite as the most precious piece of evidence
presented in this paper, which from the point of view of rarity it certainly
is. We have had to go nearly to the end of the world to get a see-saw rite,
and we have caught it just as it was about to disappear forever.
III. Weights
5. Problem of the origin of standards. For us, weights the multiple of a
unit are always an adjunct of the balance, so much so that an explanation
of the balance that does not also explain weights might be thought to have
an essential lacuna. Our previous considerations show that that is not so : bal-
ance, not weight, is the fundamental aspect of the balance. The origin of weights
is a separate problem; and a harder one. Still we thought it methodologically
correct also to give this problem some thought. Originally, we were at a loss
for a hypothesis. However, starting with some general notions of archaic society
and perusing the evidence, all the while keeping the results already achieved
in view, we eventually came to a hypothesis. Rather than stating this hypothesis
at the outset, we prefer to indicate our line of thought.

76.64.14.103 on Fri, 06 Nov 2020 14:41:58 UTC
First, we think that the origin of weight standards

in isolation, but rather along with the question of th
measures, in particular, the standard of length. In the Ag
to previously, all linear measurements are relative to
is, or was, an absolute standard called the purusa (pu
in the ritual the Purusa is the height of the sacrifice
upwards (about 1' feet, say). There is a rite, early
where the sacrificer is measured. Then the ritual gr
and the bricks for the falcon-shaped altar, for example, a
ingly.43 What this does is to identify the sacrificer with
it is his altar, or, to put it more correctly though in
is the altar, ritually. Our view, or conjecture, is that
relative length, in the ritual, and later becomes abso
measures.
Of course, there remains the question of why and h

becomes an absolute one. Quite generally we suppose
is going on: the intellectual products of the ritual s
getting separated from the ritual; measurement of len
from the ritual, and the attention is focused on measur
any sacrificer. Even so, this does not explain how one
purusa. It may be that ritual itself is behind getting the
the Sacrificer, instead of measuring things according
might measure them in accordance with that of a pred
of identifying himself with that predecessor. In this w
a standard length.44
Our view is that the prototype of weighing, or of b
"Aga Khan" rite, i.e., an offering is made equivalent to
them balance on a balance. We have also put the Judgem
In the Judgement we see the Sacrificer, or something id
ficer, being weighed against an absolute standard, name
Therefore, behind this myth we imagine a rite in whi
against an absolute standard. What was there before it became a standard
was, perhaps, the Sacrificer. The question then is: how (and why) was the
Sacrificer replaced by a standard?
HoCARThad a theory of images, according to which the king was originally
the sacrificer. "His functions were gradually taken over by the priests till his
part became purely passive."45 We may imagine that the rite was multiplied,
taking place simultaneously at different centers, with the king replaced by images.
43 See Frits Staal, Agni II: 1-2, p. 6ff.

44 According to Raglan (Origins of Religion, esp. p. 58 f), all extant rituals are derived
from a single ancient ritual system and that ritual was a Creation ritual: not creation
in our sense of making something out of nothing, but rather in the sense of re-creation,
of renewal - the world goes from bad to worse, but then by ritual action is brought
back to its pristine condition. The officiant refers to a divine prototype and identifies
himself with the god who first put the world in good order.
45 Lord Raglan, Origins of Religion, p. 49.

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The (hypothetical) contestants in th

by images for a similar reason. The r
makes good sense in the Offering, an
have suggested their use in the see-saw
Rites tend to multiply, to be modif
we may have a baby, and instead of a baby, just his hair. The image need
not be full size, but can be much smaller. In the Agnicayana ritual there is
a figurine called the "Golden Man", which is eventually deposited so as to
lie under the falcon-shaped altar. According to Staal {op. cit., 11:6, p. 28),
"a goldsmith makes the golden man {hiranmayapurusa). Any human figure
could be used as a mould. The goldsmith who assisted in 1975 (and had done
so on earlier occasions) had a mould made from an image of Nãrãyana from
a temple in Palghat. The image is covered with a thin layer of gold and becomes
the golden man .... The resulting figure measured I13/i6 inches. The weight
of the golden man should be a hundred {satamãnam), interpreted as a hundred
small coins, each called panam
Ritual also becomes popularized and stand

marriage was once confined to the King and the Queen, that is, there was
a rite, a royal rite, undergone by a man and a woman, who thereby became
King and Queen. Then others wanted whatever benefits flowed from undergoing
this rite, and so marriage spread out into society. Similarly for any rite, for
example, getting weighed. As for the standardization, we have already seen
a rite in which everyone participates in the same way: when Moses counted
the Israelites who were twenty years old and above, everyone of them gave
precisely half a shekel. A similar ritual obtained in Rome.46 In these rites,
the balance was at least in the background, as the shekel, for example, is
a standard weight.
In some such way, we are beginning to think, the first standard weight
was obtained.
6. Seeds as standard weights. It appears that in ancient times seeds were

used as standard unit weights. For example, in Old-Babylonia (c. 1800 B.C.)
the basic units of weight are the mana ("mina") and the "gin" ("shekel"),
which is ^th of the mana; the 180th part of the shekel is the še (barley) (Neu-
GEBAUER & Sachs, Mathematical Cuneiform Texts, p. 5), from which one might
presume that the smallest unit was the barley seed. Conceivably this is merely
nominal, the smallest unit merely being called a "barley". Now Neugebauer
& Sachs say that one mana corresponds to "about 500 grams". This gives
about 0.046 grams for a sê, or (presumably) one barley seed. Ridgeway {Origin
of Currency and Weight Standards, pp. 182, 194), speaking of barley seeds he
himself weighed, gives 0.064 grams as the weight of a barley seed. Pétrie {An-
cient Weights and Measures, p. 27), speaking of India, gives 0.5978 grains for
a seed of "barley, husked" ; this, taking 0.0648 grams for a grain (Troy weight),
gives 0.0387 grams for a seed of "barley, husked". How these differences are
to be reconciled we do not know. Perhaps the sě was nominal. Anyway, there
46 A. Seidenberg, "The Ritual Origin of Counting", p. 19.

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is more evidence: pétrie {op. cit., p. 27) gives evide

Numismata Orientalia, 1874) that the Indians had a u
(Troy) grains based on the weights of various seed
Chinese and the Etruscans also had a unit of about 5
the three systems related, though he brings in no s
two. Using 576 as an approximation to 580, for reason
successively by 16, 10, and 10, he gets a Chinese uni
600 grains, which he says is also "the heavy talent of
(Taking a talent to be 60 minas {cf. Neugebauer &
15360 grains, or 995.33 grams for the heavy mina
light mina.) Thus Pétrie thinks the Chinese, Indian,
systems are related, and seems to suggest that the units
of seeds. He gives no dates, except that he thinks th
Italy about 900 B.C. (and he even, on the basis of the
weights, guesses the route). Assuming that the Old-B
is a derivative of, a true seed unit, i.e., that is not m
estimate that seed units go back to 2000 B.C., but w
back we cannot say.
Ridgeway has further evidence on the seed units :
China, Laos, Annam, Sumatra, India, Persia, Ireland,
Assyria, West Africa, and Madagascar {op. cit., pp. 1
varies from civilization to savagery. Ridgeway con
valuable, weighing it against seeds is an obvious idea a
peoples independently. For example, speaking of the
writes {op. cit., p. 166):
" In all the streams on the side next Laos the wild
women, and children all alike joining in this laborio
as 'cradles' little baskets made of bamboo. The g
the rate of the weight in gold of one grain of maiz
we have finally run to ground one of the principa
We have a primitive people, who carry on all t
barter, who have no currency in the precious met
their most general unit of small value the iron
weigh one thing and one thing only, namely gold,
they do not employ any weight standard borrowed
but equate a certain amount of gold to the unit
as a constant that amount of gold by balancing it
corn that forms one of the chief staples of their su
has supplied man with weights of admirable exact
in the natural seeds of plants, and as soon as he finds out the need of
determining with great care the precious substance which he has to win
with toil and hardship from the stream, he takes the proffered means and
fashions for himself a balance and weights."
Note that the Bahnars, at least according to the information given, have
no use for gold: the only use is for selling to their more cultured neighbors.
Indeed Ridgeway (p. 165), speaks of "wild tribes of Annam forced to adapt

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their primitive unit to the metallic uni

It looks as if the Bahnars learned the value of gold from "more cultured
neighbors", and it might well be that they also learned of the balance and
seed weights from more cultured peoples (not to mention the iron hoes and
the seeds themselves). But Ridgeway does not like this point of view: he
prefers to think that the whole operation is completely obvious in all its parts,
and that the Aryan and Semitic races, for example, along with the Bahnars,
have gone through a similar line of reasoning to reach like conclusions. To
clinch the argument, he seeks "instances in a region so isolated as to be beyond
the reach of all suspicion of having borrowed from Babylon".
"From what I have said above", he continues (p. 192), "we cannot expect
to find any such community in the Old World. The New World on the other
hand supplies us with what we desire." He first looks to the Aztecs, but the
Aztecs, unfortunately, had no system of weights. However, there was barter;
and regular tribute of the southern provinces of the empire. "The traffic was
carried on partly by barter, and partly by means of a regulated currency of
different values. This consisted of transparent quills of gold dust, bits of tin
cut in the form of T, and bags full of cacao containing a specified number
of grains". The Aztecs, Ridgeway argues, were "on the verge of the invention
of a weight system". Moreover, "the Incas of Peru, who were in a stage of
civilization almost the same as the Aztecs, had already found out the art of
weighing before the coming of the Spaniards, although they were inferior to
the Mexicans in so far as they had not a ... currency such as the latter possessed. "
If it hadn't been for the cruel conditions which terminated the political existence
of the Aztecs, they would have invented the balance, too. And we can concede
that if they had, they also would easily have been able to find the value of
an amount of gold equal in weight to a cacao seed. But to say that the Aztecs
"supply us with what we desire" is a bit of an exaggeration.
Ridgeway notes that no weights accompanied the scales found in the Inca
graves, or at least he can find no record of any. Although unwilling to place
any reliance on negative evidence, he suggests that the reason no weights appear
is that they were seeds. This seems to us a valuable suggestion, although, as
we have noted, stone weights do occur with Peruvians to the west of the Incas.
7. What was weighed in ancient times? Although we cannot accept some of

Ridgeway's reconstructions, his thesis that "the art of weighing was first em-
ployed for gold" is appealing. One might think that if one thing is weighed,
then it would be obvious that other things, almost all other things, could (and
would) be weighed, but when one looks at the evidence such a presupposition
is not borne out: hardly anything is weighed! The ancient sources refer for
the most part to gold and silver, and (as in the Bible) occasionally to other
metals. Homer refers, in regard to metals, only to the weighing of gold, so
one can get the impression that first only gold was weighed and later other
metals were added. Beyond gold, only wool is mentioned as being weighed
in Homer. It is noteworthy how often wool is mentioned in ancient times
as being weighed. Thus also in Mycenae, Knossos, and Alalakh (in Turkish
Hatay, north of Syria) wool was weighed, as were woolen clothes (M. Ventris

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& J. Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek, p. 5

beeswax was weighed (loc. cit., p. 290 and p. 302.),
adjunct to the circular ideograms for the wax. Th
to mean image, as in kerostasy; and it may be that w
it was used in making images that were weighed.
are weighed (p. 358, p. 51, p. 354). Besides the metals an
in the Mycenaean documents: at Knossos, certain pro
e.g. linen and thread (p. 295); ivory (p. 393); Phoenici
(p. 51); and safflower (p. 230). We have already no
the weighing of wool, and the weighing of linen may
the weighing of woolen cloth. From Ugarit (Ras Sham
naean times, one has the following document {Docum
chandise to Ybnn: 4200 measures of oil, 600 of per
iron, 100 tesrm trees, 30 almugguor trees, 50 talen
brr, 2 talents of perfume, 20 olive trees, 40 sheke
iron is familiar, but the reeds and perfume look new
are reasons to think that the Old-Babylonians and th
millenium B.C.) also weighed "reeds". Breasted has
Egyptian Records, vol.4, §287) that the (Egyptian
bark", precisely because it is weighed. Assuming that
naean times, we see that weighing, at least for comm
only a very narrow extension beyond the metals: to
brr, whatever that is).
According to Langdon ("Assyrian Lexicographical N
ic Society, 1921, p. 575f), a Sumerian weight dating from
is inscribed : " One mana of wages in wool. Dudu the h
legend is engraved in early linear characters.
The Epic of Gilgamesh contains some weighing sce
4 written down according to the original and collated
pal, King of the World, King of Assyria' dates from t
but parts of it, at least, and especially "The Death
to Sumerian times.47 There we read that:
"For Gilgamesh, son of Nissun, they weighed out their offerings: his dear
wife, his son, his concubine, his musicians, his jester, all his household,
his servants, all who lived in the palace weighed out their offerings for
Gilgamesh the son of Nissun, the heart of Uruk. They weighed out their
offerings to Erishkigal, the Queen of Death, and to all gods of the dead.
To Namtar, who is fate, they weighed out the offering. Bread for Neti
the Keeper of the Gate, bread for Ningizzida the god of the serpent, the
lord of the Tree of Life; for Dumuzi also, the young shepherd, for Enki
and Ninki, for Endekugga and Nindekugga, for Enmul and Ninmul, all
the ancestral gods, forbears of Enlil. A feast for Shulpae the god of feasting.
47 For the chronology see "The Death of Gilgamesh", p. 50, tr. by S.N.Kramer
in Ancient Near Eastern Texts, J. D. Pritchard (ed.); and N.K.Sandars, The Epic of
Gilgamesh, p. 13. For the following excerpt, see Sandars, op. cit., p. 116.

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For Samuqan, god of the herds, for

of creation in the place of creatio
priestesses weighed out the offering
Gilgamesh, the son of Nissun, lies in the tomb, but still it is worth
mentioning that "at the place of offerings he weighed the bread offering
Earlier in the epic (op. cit., p. 71) arms are weigh

they carried was thirty score pounds.".
So here we find bread weighed, though only in t
The Old-Babylonians considered the volume of s
text YBC 7284 (cf. Neugebauer & Sachs, p. 97)
What is its weight? Its weight is 8y mana." Thus
Babylonian times. The Old-Babylonians had lists o
established) fractions" (op. cit., p. 132). On the tex
41,40 [ = 41·60/Ι+40·60"-1]
8,20
12
with 12 labelled as "its fixed fraction". The 41,40 refers, as Neugebauer

& Sachs explain, to the volume 0; 0, 0, 41, 40 SAR of one brick of "type 1 ";
and this divided into the weight 8,20 in mana of the brick gives 12, 0, 0
mãna/SAR, the density of the brick. Thus the Old-Babylonians had the notion
of density.
Some entries in the lists of "fixed fractions" refer to geometrical figures,
some to bricks, and some to other materials, especially, gold, siver, copper,
lead, asphalt, cut reeds. A good deal of effort has been expended in trying
to understand these coefficients (cf. Neugebauer & Sachs, pp. 132-139). For
example, the coefficient 5 in connection with a circle would appear to refer
to the Old-Babylonian formula 72 C2 f°r the area of a circle in terms of its
circumference.48 The coefficients for the materials are not understood, but
one might conjecture that somehow the weight is involved. Even so, there
were few materials beyond the metals, if we may judge by these lists, that
were weighed.49
The Chiu Chang Suan Shu (Nine Books on Arithmetic Technique) is a Chinese
collection of mathematical problems which has been dated to "early Han times
(202B.C.-9 A.D.)" (cf. Κ. VOGEL, Neun Bücher Arithmetischer Technik, title
page). There are reasons to think, though, that a large part of its contents
is pre-Babylonian,50 though some items might well date from more recent
48 For another list of coefficients, from Susa, dating from Old -Baby Ionian times, see
E.M. Bruins & M. Hütten, Textes Mathématiques de Suse, Mémoires de la Mission
Archéologique en Iran, vol. 34 (1961), pp. 25-30; for the dating, p. 2. The list has 69
entries. The first reads (freely translated): "5, the fixed fraction of the circle".
49 Bricks may have been weighed because stones were weighed and because a brick is a
"stone".
50 See A. Seidenberg, "On the area of a semi-circle", Archive for History

Sciences, vol.9 (1972), pp. 180-188; and B. L. vander Waerden "On pre-Babylonian
mathematics", Archive for History of Exact Sciences, vol. 23 (1980), pp. 27-46.

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times. Some of the problems involve weight, and therefo

tally to see what was weighed in China. Problem VI,
of gold and problem VII, 18 of that of gold and o
speaks of the weights of sparrows and swallows; pro
of the harvest". Problems III, 14-17 and VI, 10 spea
In VII, 16 one is given the weight of a 3x3x3 cubi
it a nephrite; one is also given the weights of unit cubes of nephrite and
of stone; and one is to find the weight of the nephrite and of the stone.51
So, as VOGEL remarks {op. cit., p. 125), The Nine Books knows specific weight
(or density, rather). Problems V, 23-25 ask for the number of "Hu" in specified
volumes of millet, beans, and rice. Though the Hu is in some contexts a measure
of capacity - and this suggests that at one time quantities of grain were simply
measured by capacity - Vogel here thinks (pp. 53 f, 141) that it refers to the
weights of a unit volume of these grains. A modest list, though we appear
to see grain being weighed.
For Egypt we rely on J.H. BREASTED's Ancient Records of Egypt. With
one exception all items are from the New Kingdom, 18th dynasty or later.
The exception (vol.1, §785), from the 13th dynasty, speaks of a "'heap' of
10 deben (weight)". According to Breasted, the 'heap' is an offering and
the 10 deben is the weight of an equivalent value in copper.
Of about 90 references to weighing (v. index under deben) most by far
refer to gold and silver, a couple to electrum (vol. 2, §§377, 761, where it
is also measured in heket, a unit of volume), a few to other metals (copper,
bronze, lead); lapis lazuli, malachite, "and every splendid costly stone" {cf.
esp. vol.2, §280); colors, natron, uz -mineral, eye-paint (vol.2, §491, vol.4,
§§345, 377, 391); yarn (vol. 4, §§228, 375), flax, in bekhen (vol. 4, §§235, 379);
wax (vol. 4, §§240, 393); myrrh, cinammon, cassia, manna, reeds {cf. esp. vol. 4,
§§232, 843, 234, 390, 287); figs (vol. 4, §240); bread (vol. 3, §§207, vol. 4, §§949-
957).
"A chapel, amounting to 100,000 deben" (vol. 4, §733) cautions us to consid-
er that the deben, though a weight, might also be a value.
The gold, silver, and other metals ; the lapis lazuli and other stones ; the
yarn and the wax: all appear to fit with the ritual origin indicated. The other
minerals and the aromatic substances (which will be considered more fully
below) also do not seem far off. Most striking, or new, are the figs and the
bread. These show up in our evidence (as being weighed) no earlier than the
19th dynasty; the bread shows up even as a daily ration for the troops; yet,
as we have seen, the weighing of bread (in Sumeria) is vastly older, at least
in offerings. (Mortuary offerings of bread go back, in Egypt, to at least the
fifth dynasty; cf. vol. 1, §252.)
We have seen that the Egyptians and Hebrews weighed myrrh, cinnamon, and
cassia; saffron and safflower were weighed at Knossos in Mycenaean times;
reeds, which we have reason to think were an "aromatic bark", were weighed
in Egypt, in Babylonia, and at Ras Shamra; silphium, it has been presumed,
51 The similarity of this problem to a famous problem solved by Archimedes, is

noteworthy.

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was weighed in Greece - the Cup of Arcésilas shows the King of Cyrene
(on the north coast of Africa) supervising a weighing, presumably of silphium
since silphium was cultivated at Cyrene for export.52 All these substances are
herbs, and are amongst the few things first weighed. According to Wallis
Budge {Herb-doctors and Physicians in the Ancient World, p. 43), following
C. Thompson, the names by which we know many of the plants, in particular
saffron, myrrh, and silphium, are derived from the Sumerians through the
Greek and the Arabic languages; so we may suspect that these herbs, saffron,
myrrh, and silphium, were already being weighed in Sumerian times.
The King was supposed to be a life-giver, and herbs really are life-givers.
Although we cannot make out the exact role of herbs in ritual, we have ample
reason to think that herbs were weighed anciently because they were originally
weighed in ritual, especially in death rites. Thus, J.G. Frazer in his Pausanias
{op. cit., vol. 1, p. 158), or, rather, Pausanias himself, tells us that "[nearby]
is a house which the sons of Tyndareus are said to have originally inhabited ;
but afterwards it was acquired by one Phormio, a Spartan. To him came the
Dioscuri in the likeness of strangers. They said they had come from Cyrene,
and desired to lodge in the house, and they begged he would let them have
the chamber which they had loved most dearly while they dwelt among men.
He made them free of all the rest of the house; only that one chamber he
said he would not give, for it was his daughter's bower, and she was a maiden.
On the morrow the maiden and all her girlish finery had vanished, and in
the chamber were found images of the Dioscuri and a table with silphium
on it. So runs the tale". The house was near a sanctuary of Hilaira and
Phoebe, daughters of Apollo. Apollo was god of medicine, so there is a
reference to medicine; not to mention that silphium itself was a medicine.
The Dioscuri are coming from Cyrene, so we have a poetic reference to silphium;
and they are coming back from the other world, so there is a reference to
death. This suggests that silphium was used in death rites.
Budge's book on herbs, just referred to, has the subtitle: The Divine Origin
of the Craft of the Herbalist. Budge tells us (p. 1) that: "... the Chinese and
the Indians, the Sumerians and Babylonians, the Persians and Assyrians . . .
and the Egyptians and Nubians . . . thought that the substances of plants were
parts and parcels of the substances of which the persons of the gods were
composed, and that the juices of plants were exudations or effluxes from them
likewise", and more particularly (p. 24) that "the tears that fall from the eyes
of Horus turn into . . . myrrh. The blood that falls from the nose of Gebban
turns into cedar trees, the sap of which is the oil "Sefi". On certain occasions
Shu and Tefnut weep, and when their tears reach the ground they sink into
the earth and transform into plants from which incense is made . . . All the
plants and the oils of the trees mentioned were believed to be powerful medicines,
and played very important parts in all rites and ceremonies connected with
the resurrections of the dead ..." Herbalism was a true science and the state-
ments from antiquity just made sound as though they may have been part
of a theory. The form they take, with their references to gods, indicates a
ritual origin for the science of herbs.
52 See, for example, H.B.Walters, History of Ancient Pottery, pp. 341-342.

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"Osiris - we learn on p. 12 - was a god of vegetatio

phases ... As the god and judge of the dead he dwe
Tuat or Underworld, and the souls of the beatified de
in the cultivation of the wonderful Maat plant. This plant or shrub was a
form of the body of Osiris, and his followers ate it and lived upon it. It
maintained their lives, and because they ate the body of their god, they became
one with him and, like him, lived forever". This passage makes us wonder
whether the "Feather of Maãt" was not really the Plant of Maat. The hiero-
glyphs ^ for feather and ^ for reed or plant are curiously alike; and though
there is enough difference in some variants to make the reading feather unques-
tionable, still the similarity seems noteworthy. 53
On p. 17 we learn that " another most important god of medicine was Anpu,
whom the Greeks called "Anubis". He may be regarded as the Apothecary
of the gods of Egypt, for he was the keeper of the house of medicine, and
the "chamber of embalmment". The dead body of Osiris was taken to him,
and whilst Isis recited her spells and incantations, Anubis carried out the opera-
tions connected with the embalmment of the body of the god and the preserva-
tion of his viscera . . . Anubis was the keeper of mummies in the Other World,
and we see him taking part in the weighing of the heart of the dead in the
Hall of Osiris, and examining the tongue of the Great Scales on behalf of
Thoth and Osiris ..." Thus the herb-doctor of the gods was a weigher.
Thus we can refer the weighing of herbs to a ritual weighing.
So far we have found little that was weighed, and that little for the most
part we can relate to ritual. From before 500 B.C. we have almost nothing
that occurs in daily life - the figs of the Egyptians are an exception. Finally
in Greece, in the classical period, we find meat and bread weighed in the
market. G. WILKINSON {Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, vol. 2,
p. 10) refers to the "banquet of Xenophon" in which the "the civil magistrate
weighs bread in the market." In Egypt, too, according to Wilkinson (loc.
cit., p. 10), probably following DiODORUS, there was the office of the public
weighers, or qabbaneh, whose business it was to ascertain the exact weight
of every object presented to them in the public street, or market, where they
temporarily erected their scales. The "superintendence of weights and measures"
belonged to the priests until the Romans took away that privilege. How old
the office of the public weigher is we cannot say.
8. Gold. The fact that gold was weighed against a seed does not prove,
or indicate, that grain was weighed : the seed was the weigher, not the weighed.
Moreover, the evidence goes against the idea that grain was weighed; rather
it was measured by bulk, or capacity (see Ridgeway, op. cit., pp. 115, 267
and Documents, pp. 170, 214, 216, 218, 221, 224). (Since, however, we have
seen rites in which grain is offered in a balance, we are not ready to give
up the idea that grain was weighed, or balanced, rather, in pre-historic times.).
The first metals known were gold and copper. In Upper Egypt copper
was known to the Amratians, a prehistoric people and even to the earlier
53 Cf. Wallis Budge, Egyptian Language, p. 8, no. 1 ; p. 54, nos. 53-55; p. 68, no. 13;
p. 71 nos. 33, 35; see also p. 81, no. 57, where maãt = reed whistle = what is right or straight

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Badarians {cf. V. Gordon Childe, New

and pp. 43, 45); in North Mesopotam
at Hassuna, near the beginning of the
{cf. loc. cit., pp. 110, 108). In North
from the Gawra period {loc. cit., p. 2
Upper Egypt, gold is known from Ger
of the Amratians (p. 53), mentions go
the Amratians had gold is not clear. C
p. 99), speaking of the prehistoric pe
were the first to use gold. In other w
gold at Amratian times.
Now Flinders Pétrie found weights, or what he took to be weights,
in Amratian times {cf. Ancient Weights and Measures, p. 18). In his Wisdom
of the Egyptians, he writes (p. 23): "Almost at the beginning of the Amratian
civilization a stone weight is found, carefully wrapped in leather, and put in
the hands of the dead. This weight agrees with ten others of the Amratian
civilization, all being on the "gold" standard of historical times, beqa. In the
Gerzean civilization other weights are found, of the standard known as daric,
Babylonian. The Semainean civilization of the dynastic races brought in the
usual qedet standard which was the main one of historic times ..." If this
is right, the conclusion is obvious, and Pétrie himself draws it (p. 69): "The
balance was certainly used from Amratian times, as a few weights then occur. "
So, in Amratian times we have the balance but no gold! Still, we do not
think this is necessarily fatal to RlDGEWAY's thesis. It may be merely that
no gold has been found from Amratian times. Or there may be some other
explanation.
Let us then assume for the moment that RlDGEWAY's thesis, which we
still find appealing, is right; and let us also assume that his thesis that seeds
were the original weight standards is also right (though for this we have no
confidence). And let us ask how Ridgeway could have imagined that the
balance was invented to weigh a seed's weight of gold. It is obvious that RlDGE-
WAY himself gave this question no thought, but still let us try for ourselves to
see how it could have been done. Clearly, from RlDGEWAY's point of view, the
balance couldn't have been there before it was applied to weighing gold, since "the
art of weighing was first employed for gold." So we must suppose that before the
balance gold was valued and that one desired a measure for an amount of gold.
This could have been done, and was done, by capacity;54 but presumably one
wanted a more refined measure, one that could measure a rice grain's weight of
gold, say. Now the inventor of the balance had, of course, the sensation of heavi-
ness when he picked up things, say gold or seeds, but according to RlDGEWAY's
view, he must also have had the idea that the sensation of heaviness could
be measured. Now we have this idea, but it would appear that we get it by
weighing things on a balance ! We are not quite ready to say that RlDGEWAY's
idea involves a logical contradiction, but to anyone accustomed to an evolution-
ary point of view, RlDGEWAY's idea will appear out of the question.
54 The Aztecs had no weights and measured gold by capacity.

76.64.14.103 on Fri, 06 Nov 2020 14:41:58 UTC
By an evolutionary point of view we mean, for ex

arose from something not yet a balance. This is, indee
arose when the activities on the proto-balance, i.e., t
to symbols. One will note that in the various rites which
ing the invention of the balance, though the idea of w
venes, the essential idea is that of balancing, and not
involves a standard, and multiples of a unit; balancin
these points in mind, one will see that Ridgeway's
weighing was first employed for gold, " is not incomp
J.R. McClean's theory, expressed in "The Origin of
Chronicle, 4th Series, vol. 12 (1912)) is less simple-m
but suffers from somewhat the same difficulty. Mc
that "the present conception of weight as a form of
elementary [or simple] idea", nor is that of density,
not to attribute to [the ancients] our present idea of
in the mind of most of us by the uses to which we
Weight is "for most of us [as for Professor Ridgeway
whereas McClean's notion is that weight originated, rather, as a measure
of quality: namely, gold often comes mixed with other substances, especially
with silver, as in so-called electrum. Gold was originally measured by capacity,
i.e., volume, and since silver has about half the density of gold, the relative
lightness of electrum as compared with an equal volume of gold would be
forced upon the attention. The balance was first used, according to McClean,
to test the purity of a supposed specimen of gold. McClean has some, though
not much evidence, in support of his theory; for example, the Papyrus Harris
{cf. J.H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, vol. 4, §256), which was prepared
for Ramses III (Twentieth Dynasty), speaks of a "splendid balance .. of elec-
trum, the like of which had not been made since the time of god. Thoth
sat upon it as guardian of the balance.., being a great and august ape of
gold in beaten work", so clearly the Egyptians considered that gold was more
precious than electrum. Moreover, as one sees from a perusal of Breasted's
work {op. cit.), electrum is sometimes measured simultaneously by volume (in
heket) and by weight (in deben); see e.g., vol. 2, §§295, 377, 761. McClean
speaks also of the Judgement scene of the Book of the Dead. He considers
this a kind of allegory corresponding to the testing of electrum for purity
- the specimen is tested against a standard of pure gold; this would explain
why rising was the bad outcome. The unit weight is simply the weight of
a unit volume of pure gold. Whatever the value of McClean's suggestions
may be - and though too narrowly based they are at points appealing - it
is to be noticed that he takes the balance for granted - it is simply there.
Whether this silence is intentional or merely incidental is difficult to say.
These considerations lead to one further remark. We have seen that at
the beginning and for a long time thereafter very little was weighed on
balance: a few metals, wool, wax, perhaps herbs. The ritual origin of the weighin
of wool and of wax has been indicated. There remains gold, and the quest
of why it is valued, or, as we moderns would put it: What's gold good for
anyway? Since we can't eat it, we ordinarily would mean: Of what mechan

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use is it? And we are hard put to ans

everybody wants it, but apparently on
has been used for filling tooth caviti
can be beaten so thin that it can be s
light, the part of the spectrum we sense
masks ; for a similar reason it was use
walk, as a shield against the sun; it is
injections for treatment of rheumatoid
of recent date.55 Even so, its princip
mechanical use. All this suggests that the
at gold, that they saw a value in it
is the color of light, and above all it d
with imperishability, with life and w
(Progress of Man, p. 54; see also pp
fact must be noted that all, or almos
known to be, or to have been, used as
a ritual origin for the value of gold i
weighed had only a ritual importance
had a ritual origin.
According to Pétrie, we have from E
times, and that prehistoric.56 Thus f
2000 years, and for several hundred m
there are plenty of pictures of balan
to Amratian times. We would conject
4000 B.C. From before that time we h
on the invention of the balance, and
that can be done is to lay down hypo
have. This is what we have done.
Summary
Let us summarize by saying what we think were the main steps in the
early history of the balance.
In the beginning was the see-saw. This entered into ritual, where the partici-
pants disported themselves on it. There exists a myth in which Heaven and
Earth are in the pans of a swinging balance; guided by the idea that a myth
is (or often is) the counterpart of a rite, we suppose a rite in which two partici
pants, identified as Heaven and Earth, see-sawed on a see-saw. The myth speaks
of "strife"; and we have a class of myths, namely the myths of kerostasy
in which the balance is considered to be a means for a contest. Moreover
there still does exist (with the Bella Coola) a rite in which images on a se
55 See The New Yorker of Feb. 18, 1980, pp. 72-73.

56 According to Pétrie (Wisdom of the Egyptians, p. 114): "From the 1st to the
dynasty, there is no gold with less than 4% silver, and the average has 16% silv
Electrum occurs commonly in nature, though it can be imitated artifically. Acco
to Breasted (Ancient Egyptian Records, vol. 4, §245) "the usual porportion for ele
[was] two parts gold to three parts silver [in weight]".

76.64.14.103 on Fri, 06 Nov 2020 14:41:58 UTC
are considered to be contending with each other. S

we have called the Aga Khan rite : the principal is ba
to get an equivalent for the principal (i.e., a substitu
sacrifice). These rites, in which human participant
see-saw, we consider to be older than the balance. To e
were used instead of people, and the rites were reduc
was the result of this symbolization. The standard w
existence - it corresponds to the Aga Khan in the Ag
Closely related to the see-saw are the grain-crushe
The grain crusher is operated by a man standing on
forward and back; and boys have on occasion oper
the same way. So standing while see-sawing, althoug
to our children, may well have been an early form of
The Weighing of the Heart at the Judgement in
incorporates a large part of the history of the ba
equivalent for the Sacrificer. This can be a stone,
of the Sacrificer; and there do exist rites in which t
of the principal. The corresponding myth says that
the principal is in his hair. There are rites in which
consider that the myth that the heart is weighed res
the idea that the heart, rather than the hair, is the
Weighing is a judgement and judgement is already p
a device for contest (and we do have a rite in whic
a balance). The Aga Khan theme is present in the form
the Feather of Maãt. The Judgement differs from k
no contest; only one person, or soul, is on the bal
and down, rather than up, is the favorable outcome.
have come about because of the weighing of gold:
(or of electrum, rather) will outweigh the less pure.
Originally and for a long time very few things wer
things may have been balanced); and what these thin
with our notions of ritual origins. We have seen wh
is weighed because hair is; and linen is weighed becau
because images were made of wax (and because image
were also made of gold: the King is a life-giver and his image is made of
a life-giver. Gold is weighed because it is supposed to be a life-giver; herbs,
because they really are life-givers. The Feather of Maãt may originally have
been the Herb of Maat - the hieroglyphs for feather and for herb are the
same, at least in some variants; and it is Anubis, the herb-doctor of the gods,
who supervises the Weighing of the Heart.
Stones weighing the same as other stones have been found from Amratian
times, so there are good reasons to think the balance was known to the Amra-
tians, in the first half of the 4th millenium BC. The balance entered " commerce"
in that gold was weighed and exchanged for other things. The balance played
an important part in ancient commerce, but for a long time merely to find
the weight of gold or some other precious metal used in exchange. The artisans
used the balance, and the Old-Babylonians by 1800 B.C. even had what we

76.64.14.103 on Fri, 06 Nov 2020 14:41:58 UTC
would call a scientific conception of w

as we know, to think that the balance ent
commodities as early as the second m
whose links with ritual we can for the
times, the balance was used in the mar
the earlier use, except for the commer
linked to ritual.
References
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The Book of the Dead, p. 23). Figure 6 is also taken from Die Seelenwaage , p. 32.
Department of Mathematics
University of California
Berkeley, California 94720
and
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Houston
Houston, Texas 77004
(Received June 5, 1980)

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Scales Comparative Ritual

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The Ritual Origin of the Balance

Author(s): A. Seidenberg and J. Casey

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1 . Statement of the problem

2. The Balance in America

//. The Balance

3. Myths and rites related to the balance

d. The Balancing of Heaven and Earth

4. The evidence in the light of a hypothesis

b. Good and bad, light and heavy

bis. Divination by weight

c. The Offering and the Balancing

6. Seeds as standard weights

7. What was weighed in ancient times?

1. Statement of the problem. The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead is

1 Translated by Sir E.A.Wallis Budge. 3 vols. 2nd ed.

Archive for History of Exact Sciences, Volume 23 © by Springer-Verlag 1980

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Fig. 1 . The Judgement.

The chapters are often prefaced with

3 See his book How Came Civilization*}

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To us the conjecture on the balance was a thesis to be

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this is a device for evading a danger

11. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

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generally put, the question of whether the New and O

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in the northern part of Mexico, and t

"As to whether the latter... was independently invented in America is a

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Fig. 2. Beam-balance from lea.

"On either side of the cord by which the beam is s

12 B. Kisch, Scales and Weights, p. 35.

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Fig. 3. Peruvian balance beams from

Fig. 4. Sketch of an Egyp

the points A, F, Β are fixed,

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The bismar is described in the Aristotelian or pseu

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The eighteen stones thus closely weigh

respectively; thus, as VON HORNBOSTEL notes, in every case a 2

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The unit underlying Px is //, which Nordenskiö

II. The Balance

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there is a helper to keep the basket stead

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Fig. 5. Tread-Mill (kang tui)

without two teams? LowiE was a respected and ho

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it was first. The difficulty of finding s

Fig. 6. Kerostasy on an ancient Greek vase.

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Kretzenbacher {op. cit., p. 25) calls the Weighing

b. The Judgement. The judgement in yonder wo

The Tibetan Buddhists know, or at least in the eig

19 J.Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Relig

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in the Judgement; though Sir JOSHU