Antiquity
The name "stone" derives from the use of stones for weights - a practice that dates back into antiquity. The ancient Hebrew Law against the carrying of "diverse weights, a large and a small" is more literally translated as "you shall not carry a stone and a stone (אבן ואבן), a large and a small". There was no "standard" stone in the ancient Jewish world, but in Roman times weights crafted to a multiple of the Roman libra (a pound of about 327.54 g) for use in commerce were often made of stone. Such weights varied in quality - 10 and 50 pound examples acquired in Italy, possibly from Pompeii, were of polished blackstone, while a 40 pound example on exhibition in Eschborn, close to the Roman frontier in Germany, was made of sandstone.
Read more about this topic: Stone (unit)
Famous quotes containing the word antiquity:
“We gladly put antiquity above our age but not posterity. Only a father doesn’t begrudge his son’s talent.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground,—and to one another; it is either winged or it is legged. It is hardly as if you had seen a wild creature when a rabbit or a partridge bursts away, only a natural one, as much to be expected as rustling leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“How do you know antiquity was foolish? How do you know the present is wise? Who made it foolish? Who made it wise?”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)