Weighing Silver on the scales : An overview of silver hoards and balance weights during the Middle Bronze Age in the Near East

Silver was the main medium of exchange and standard of value in the ancient Near East. Written documents inform that when it passed by hands it was always weighed on balance. However, texts are less informative regarding practical operations involving such exchange. On the contrary, coherent assemblages of balance weights reveal much about official standards, how widely were they acknowledged within a given territory and how far were different official systems reciprocally interconnected, and they can also offer precious information on the practical weighing operations. A first evaluation of sets of Near Eastern weights and silver hoards from sites dated to the Middle Bronze Age is here presented together with the methodological approach for the analysis of silver bullion elaborated by an interdisciplinary research group headed by the A.