Mina (unit)

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The mina (or also: mine) is an ancient Greek unit of weight defined as being 50 shekels.
The mina, like the shekel, was also a unit of currency. In ancient Greece it was equal to 100 drachmae.

In ancient Sumerian times, a m'na was a unit of weight; but talents and shekels had not yet been introduced. 1/60 talents and also 60 shekels.

Evidence from Ugarit indicates that a mina was equivalent to fifty shekels[1]. The prophet Ezekiel refers to a mina ('maneh' in the King James Version) as sixty shekels[2].

Since the Akkadian period, 2 m'na was equal to 1 sila of water (cf. clepsydra, water clock).

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[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Tenney, Merril ed., The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, vol. 5, "Weights and Measures," Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1976.
  2. ^ Ezekiel 45:12

Note, that the word "mine", in the sense of land mine came from the form of this ancient weight stone.

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