weights in the archaeological record of Syro-Mesopotamia and adjacent regions
suggests that this technology was widely adopted during the ED III and Akkadian
periods. This is roughly contemporary with the economic innovations noted above.
Objects identified as pan balance weights have been recorded with some frequency
across EBA Anatolia into the Aegean, and have become visible in archaeological
literature due largely to the careful compilations and analyses of Rahmstorf ( 2006 ,
2007 ) and Bobokhyan ( 2007 , 2009 ). These authors have applied sophisticated
statistical studies to large assemblages of weights from third millennium contexts across
Western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean to arrive at a delineation of regional
weight standards. For example, both authors have suggested that multiple standards
were in operation in EBA Anatolia, including standards based on northern Syrian
units of 9. 4 g and 11. 4 – 11. 7 g (Bobokhyan 2009 : 40 ) and local standards based on units
of 5 – 5. 5 g (Bobokhyan 2009 : 39 ). Rahmstorf ( 2007 : 23 – 24 ) also observes a
Mesopotamian standard based on 8. 33 g units and a Syrian one based on 9. 35 g units
in EBA Anatolia.
To what extent the statistically thin corpus from EBA Anatolia (probably no more
than sixty examples) can demonstrate the existence and interaction of different regional
weight standards may be questioned. A more extreme skeptic might wonder if these
weights circulated as desirable, shiny, exotic and amuletic things with little or no
administrative function, much like cylinder seals appear to have done during the EBA
in Anatolia (see above). I doubt that such skepticism is warranted in this case however.
Rahmstorf ( 2006 : 72 – 73 ) has highlighted a number of beam-shaped, bone objects from
roughly contemporary contexts in northwestern Anatolia and the northeastern Aegean,
at Late Troy I–II, Bozüyük, Poliochni, and Küllüoba. These all have three piercings,
one on either end of the beam and one in the middle. A balance arm for a scale is the
most plausible interpretation of this object type (Rahmstorf 2006 : 72 ).
Weight metrology signals a new use and perception of materials in EBA Anatolia
related to the commodification of metal. In Mesopotamia, the weight of metal (in
particular silver) was chosen as the primary standard of valuation. The primacy of
metal required that its value was uniform, stable, and agreed upon, at least in
transactions where it was used to measure value. In principle any commodity might
have been used to make a payment during the third millennium (within a price grid),
but the most practical and desirable medium of exchange was metal, by virtue of its
portability (high value, low volume) and liquidity (as a physical property).
All metal objects in any form were potential reserves of wealth that could be
mobilized or liquidated in exchange transactions (Sherratt and Sherratt 1991 : 360 ).
Likewise, any metal object could be weighed on a scale to arrive at a commodity value.
But the value of a metal object can be derived from more than just its weight. Value
can also derive from the complexity or exquisiteness of the craftsmanship of a metal
object, or its biography (i.e. who owned this object last?; where did it come from?).
Variables of craftsmanship and biography have the potential to complicate assessments
of the “pure” commodity value, measured with the weight of metal. These variables
were reduced through the use of ingots, which were also an innovation of the third
millennium, and closely related to the innovations in metrology.
Bar and plano-convex forms of metal objects have been convincingly identified as
ingots in wide-ranging contexts in EBA Anatolia. Notched gold and electrum bar
forms were found in Treasure deposit F (Antonova et al. 1996 : cat. nos. 128 – 132 ) and
–– Christoph Bachhuber ––