6. Glossary of Measures, Weights, and Monetary Units
Definitions of weights and measures have changed across time and place in Egyptian history. The following is primarily based on the definitions offered by the Mamluk-era author al-Qalqashandī as interpreted by Walther Hinz 1 and Eliyahu Ashtor, 2 and corroborated by the internal evidence in the Villages of the Fayyum.
Fractions
Al-Nābulsī uses combinations of the following terms to designate fractions of all types of units, including monetary units, units of volume and units of length and surface:
- niṣf= half, 1/2.
- thulth= third, 1/3.
- rubʿ= quarter, 1/4.
- suds= sixth, 1/6 (and also half a sixth, 1/12).
- thumn= eighth, 1/8 (and also half an eighth, 1/16).
- qīrāṭ= carat, 1/24 (and also half a carat 1/48; a quarter of a carat, 1/96). 3
- ḥabba= literally ‘grain’, 1/72.
- dāniq= From Persian, dāng, literally ‘a sixth’, 1/144. 4
Dry Measures (Volume)
- ardabb= about 90 liters, holding approximately 69.6 kg. of wheat and 56 kg. of barley. 5
- wayba= 1/6 ardabb = 15 liters, or 11.6 kg. of wheat. 6
Length
- dhirāʿ (also dhirāʿ al-ʿamal) = cubit/ work cubit = 65.6 cm. 7
- qaṣaba (lit. ‘cane’, or ‘reed’) = 6 dhirāʿ= about 3.9 m. 8
- qabḍa (lit. ‘a fist’s width’) = 1/6 dhirāʿ= about 10.9 cm. 9
Square Measures (Area)
Weight
- qinṭār= 45 kg = 100 raṭl. 11
- raṭl= 450 gr = 144 Dirham. 12
- qinṭār jarwī= 100 raṭl jarwī = 96.7 kg. A weight measure used in Egypt for measuring oil, sugar, and other types of commodities. 13
- maṭar — (a measurement unit of liquids) = approximately 16–17 kg. 14
Monetary Units
- dīnār= Dinar = gold coin, with canonical weight of 4.233 g. 15
- dirham= Dirham = silver coin, with canonical weight of 3.125 gr. In the Villages of the Fayyum, however, the low quality waraq or black dirham is always intended. 16
Exchange Rate
The standard exchange rate used uniformly throughout the treatise is 1 dinar = 40 (waraq) dirhams, an exchange rate referred to as the ‘exchange rate of Cairo’. 17
[10] Bosworth, s.v. ‘Miṣāḥa’, EI2. Borsch (The Black Death, p. 48) has recently argued that in the Mamluk era, an Egyptian feddan was equal to roughly 1.4 acres (i.e., 5,665 sq. m.). We stick with the traditional interpretation, which is based on the definition of the feddan as 400 square qaṣaba, as indicated in literary and documentary sources. In an eleventh-century document from the Fayyum, a surface area of 2 feddans is measured to be 50 qaṣaba by 16 qaṣaba, i.e., 800 square qaṣaba; Gaubert and Mouton, Hommes et villages, p. 112 no. 23.