Talent (measurement)

For other uses, see Talent.
Sumerian tablet with measurement glyphs

The talent (Ancient Greek: τάλαντον, talanton, Latin talentum) was a unit of weight used in the ancient world, often used for weighing gold and silver, but also mentioned in connection with other metals, ivory,[1] and frankincense. In Homer's poems, it is always used of gold and is thought to have been quite a small weight of about 8.5 grams (0.30 oz), approximately the same as the later gold stater coin or Persian daric.

In later times in Greece, it represented a much larger weight, approximately 3000 times as much: an Attic talent was approximately 26.0 kilograms (57 lb 5 oz).[2] The word also came to be used as the equivalent of the middle eastern kakkaru or kikkar. A Babylonian talent was 30.2 kg (66 lb 9 oz).[3] Ancient Israel adopted the Babylonian weight talent, but later revised it.[4] The heavy common talent, used in New Testament times, was 58.9 kg (129 lb 14 oz).[4] A Roman talent (divided into 100 librae or pounds) was 1+1⁄3 Attic talents, approximately 32.3 kg (71 lb 3 oz). An Egyptian talent was 80 librae,[2] approximately 27 kg (60 lb).[2]

  1. ^ auri eborisque talenta "talents of gold and ivory", Vergil, Aeneid 11.333.
  2. ^ a b c John William Humphrey, John Peter Oleson, Andrew Neil Sherwood, Greek and Roman technology, p. 487.
  3. ^ Dewald 1998, p. 593.
  4. ^ a b "III. Measures of Weight:", Jewish Encyclopedia.