Euro bronze

2001/05/24 Carton Virto, Eider - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Matematika
• Historia

The societies that flourished 4,000 years ago around the Mediterranean were not so different from us and they too had to face these problems. From the traces found in the deposits of the time and the writings of then we know that the Mesopotamians, Syrians, Egyptians... were good merchants, even with their own weight units. In ancient Syria they used talents, shekels and mines, even in the city of Ugarit, although the relationship between these units was different. The Egyptians, for their part, used KDT and DBN.

According to two researchers from the Complutense University of Madrid and Harvard University of Boston, the treatment between these countries was essential to boost trade and ensure trust among buyers. In today's journal Nature they have explained their hypothesis.

The magic number is 9.4 grams. Research has been based on talent, shekel and pain and has been based on the Multitudinaries system. His shekel has been calculated as a kdt of the Egyptians and as three-quarters of a dbn. Both researchers have found that with simple multiplication and sum concrete correlations between units are achieved and that traders also did the same. For example, four shekel (37.6 g) are approximately three dbn (38.49 g). Researchers believe that the accuracy of the calculations of the time would not highlight the incidence of a gram and have shown their confidence in the possible exchange system proposed by themselves. Numerous estimates and correlations have been presented in the article published in the journal Nature. Curious and interesting.