Talent (measurement)

The talent 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, and <a href="/facts/Frankincense/QwuSAvvd">frankincense</a>. In <a href="/facts/Homer/Xw8Ur53U">Homer</a>'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 <a href="/facts/Stater/sE3r4YKA">stater</a> coin or <a href="/facts/Persian_daric/Bk0pQeGw">Persian daric</a>.
In later times in Greece, it represented a much larger weight, approximately 3,000 times as much: an <a href="/facts/Attica/NmJausKA">Attic</a> talent was approximately 26.0 kilograms (57 lb 5 oz). 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). <a href="/facts/History_of_ancient_Israel_and_Judah/qVoA0uua">Ancient Israel</a> adopted the Babylonian weight talent, but later revised it. The <a href="/facts/Biblical_and_Talmudic_units_of_measurement/RPHfYmcx">heavy common talent</a>, used in New Testament times, was 58.9 kg (129 lb 14 oz). A Roman talent (divided into 100 <a href="/facts/Libra_(weight)/TjXrMs3P">librae</a> or pounds) was 1+1⁄3 Attic talents, approximately 32.3 kg (71 lb 3 oz). An Egyptian talent was 80 librae, approximately 27 kg (60 lb).

Talent (measurement) open-in-new

Talent (measurement)