Talent (measurement)

The Akkadian talent was called kakkaru[1][2] in the Akkadian language,[3] corresponding to Biblical Hebrew kikkar כִּכָּר (translated to Greek τάλαντον 'talanton' in the Septuagint,[4] English 'talent'), to Ugaritic kkr (𐎋𐎋𐎗),[5] Phoenician kkr (𐤒𐤒𐤓),[6] Syriac kakra (ܟܲܟܪܵܐ),[7] and apparently to gaggaru in the Amarna Tablets.[8] The name comes from the semitic root KKR meaning 'to be circular',[9] referring to the round coins of weighted gold or silver.[10] It was divided into 60 minas, each of which was subdivided into 60 shekels: the use of 60 illustrates the attachment of the early Mesopotamians to their useful sexagesimal arithmetic. These weights were used subsequently by the Babylonians, Sumerians, and Phoenicians, and later by the Hebrews. The Babylonian weights are approximately: shekel (8.4 g, 0.30 oz), mina (504 g, 1 lb 1.8 oz), and talent (30.2 kg, 66 lb 9 oz). The Phoenicians took their trade to the Greeks with their weight measures during the Archaic period, and the latter adopted these weights and their ratio of 60 minas to one talent; a Greek mina in Euboea around 800 BC was hence 504 g;[11] other minas in the Mediterranean basin, and even Greek minas in other parts of Greece, varied locally in some small measure from the Babylonian values, and from one to another. The Bible mentions the unit in various contexts, like Hiram king of Tyre sending 120 talents (Hebrew כִּכָּר kikkar) of gold to King Solomon as part of an alliance,[12] or the building of the candelabrum necessitating a talent of pure gold.[13]

The weight talent (Latin: talentum, from Ancient Greek: τάλαντον, talanton "scale, balance, sum") was one of several ancient weight units for commercial transactions. An Attic weight talent was approximately 26.0 kg[14] (approximately the mass of water required to fill an average amphora), and a Babylonian talent was 30.2 kg (66 lb 9 oz).[15] Ancient Israel adopted the Babylonian weight talent, but later revised it.[16] The heavy common talent, used in New Testament times, was 58.9 kg (129 lb 14 oz).[16] A Roman weight talent in ancient times is equivalent to 100 librae; a libra is exactly three quarters of an Attic weight mina, so a Roman talent is 1.33 Attic talents and hence approximately 32.3 kg (71 lb 3 oz). An Egyptian talent was 80 librae.[14] and hence approximately 27 kg (60 lb).[14]

The original Homeric talent was probably the gold equivalent of the value of an ox or a cow.[17] Based on a statement from a later Greek source that "the talent of Homer was equal in amount to the later Daric [... i.e.] two Attic drachmas" and analysis of finds from a Mycenaean grave-shaft, a weight of about 8.5 grams (0.30 oz) can be established for this original talent.[17] Homer describes how Achilles gave a half-talent of gold to Antilochus as a prize.[18] The later Attic talent was of a different weight than the Homeric, but represented the same value in copper as the Homeric did in gold, with the price ratio of gold to copper in Bronze Age Greece being 1:3000.[17]

An Attic talent was the equivalent of 60 minae or 6,000 drachmae.[19]

An Attic weight talent was about 25.8 kilograms (57 lb). Friedrich Hultsch estimated a weight of 26.2 kg,[20] and Dewald (1998) harvp error: no target: CITEREFDewald1998 (help) offers an estimate of 26.0 kg.[21] An Attic talent of silver was the value of nine man-years of skilled work.[22] In 415 BC, an Attic talent was a month's pay for a trireme crew,[23] Hellenistic mercenaries were commonly paid one drachma per day of military service.

The Aeginetan talent weighed about 37 kg. The German historian Friedrich Hultsch calculated a range of 36.15 to 37.2 kg based on such estimates as the weight of one full Aeginetan metretes of coins, and concluded that the Aeginetan talent represented the water weight of a Babylonian ephah: 36.29 kg by his reckoning (the metretes and the ephah were units of volume).[24] Percy Gardner estimated a weight of 37.32 kg, based on extant weights and coins.[25]

An Aeginetan talent was worth 60 Aeginetan minae, or 6,000 Aeginetan drachmae.

The talent as a unit of value is mentioned in the New Testament in Jesus' parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14–30).[26] The use of the word "talent" to mean "gift or skill" in English and other languages originated from an interpretation of this parable sometime late in the 13th century.[27][28] Luke includes a different parable involving the mina.[29] According to Epiphanius, the talent is called mina (maneh) among the Hebrews, and was the equivalent in weight to one-hundred denarii.[30] The talent is found in another parable of Jesus[31] where a servant who is forgiven a debt of ten thousand talents refuses to forgive another servant who owes him only one hundred silver denarii. The talent is also used elsewhere in the Bible, as when describing the material invested in the Ark of the Covenant.[32] Solomon received 666 gold talents a year.[33]

Elsewhere in the New Testament, in the end times, the talent is used as a weight for hail being poured forth from heaven and dropping on mankind as punishment. Revelation 16:21 And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.

• Herodotus (1998) [440 BC]. Dewald, Carolyn (ed.). The Histories. Translated by Waterfield, Robin. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192126092.
• Hultsch, Friedrich (1882). Griechische und Römische Metrologie [Greek and Roman Metrology] (in German) (2nd ed.). Weidmannsche Buchhandlung.

• "Talent" . Encyclopedia Americana. 1920.
• "Talent" . The New Student's Reference Work . 1914.