Abstract
Apropos of Mr. Chisholm's interesting account of ancient weighing instruments, in your last number, I venture to call his attention to the representation of an equal-armed balance in an Egyptian papyrus of the nineteenth dynasty, about 1350 B.C. It is to be found in the celebrated “Ritual of the Dead,” a hieroglyphical papyrus of Hunnefer, of the reign of Seti I. In the “Judgment Scene” the heart of the deceased is represented as being weighed in a balance in the Hall of Perfect Justice, and in the presence of Osiris. The balance is of the ordinary equal-beam construction, the final adjustment being attained by a sliding weight on one side of the beam, exactly like the “rider” on our exact balances. The papyrus may be seen in the British Museum.
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RODWELL, G. Ancient Balances. Nature 9, 8 (1873). https://doi.org/10.1038/009008a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/009008a0
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