Three Bronze Byzantine Weights: 4th and 5th centuries AD
Under the Byzantine administration, weights and measures were centrally controlled. The ancient Greek litre, the ancestor of today's European litre, was a solid weight measure, rather than a liquid volume measure.
The small bronze weight showing two emperors has the Greek letter S showing that it is equal to the weight of one Solidus, a Byzantine gold coin. This weight is nearly contemporary with the Anglo-Saxon balance scales from England, which were found with Byzantine weights and coins.
The second weight is equivalent to one Byzantine litre, and is engraved with the silver-inlaid personification of Constantinople flanked by two emperors.
