Elephant Mina in the Getty Villa, June 2016

Title: Weight with Elephant

Artist/Maker: Unknown

Culture: Greek (Seleucid)

Place: Asia Minor (Place created)

Date: second half of 3rd century B.C.

Medium: Bronze

Object Number: 96.AC.142

Dimensions: 11.2 × 11.5 × 0.8 cm, 0.5345 kg (4 7/16 × 4 1/2 × 5/16 in., 1.1784 lb.)

Credit Line: Gift of Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman

A majestic Indian elephant moves to the left across a ground line on this Seleucid bronze weight. An inverted anchor, a frequent Seleucid dynastic emblem, appears in very low relief in front of the elephant. The Greek inscriptions above and below the animal state that this object is an official weight from the Seleucid Empire or dynasty and that it weighs a mina, a standard unit of measure for the Greeks in the 200s B.C. Cities kept official weights as controls against which the thousands of weights used daily in commercial transactions could be calibrated. The careful detailed decoration, the form of the letters in the inscription, and the bronze material all date this weight to relatively early in Seleucid rule.

The back of the weight is covered with a net pattern and a raised rectangular area in the center shows that the weight was adjusted. Normally, flat plaque weights, such as this one, were laid in the pan of a simple balance scale. This weight, however, has a hole pierced in the center top, evidently converting it for suspension.

Text from: www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/29531/unknown-maker-weight-with-elephant-greek-seleucid-second-half-of-3rd-century-bc