Master Archaeologist

Chapter 258 How much is a thousand pieces of gold? 250 kg!

Human intelligence is naturally the best on this earth.

After Chen Han's operation, the box of gold was safely extracted from the ground, and the whole box was extracted.

In the same way, the other two boxes were quickly extracted.

After that, the three boxes of gold were sent to the laboratory next door.

The laboratory archaeologists waiting there will separate the gold cakes and horseshoe gold individually, and then weigh them.

Gold was generally not the main currency in circulation in the Western Han Dynasty. It was used for emperor collections, rewards, gifts and large transactions.

Of course, it will be used in foreign trade.

But in the Western Han Dynasty, it was not circulated among the common people anyway, and the currency circulated among the common people was only five baht.

As for gold, after the emperor rewarded the ministers, the ministers basically used them for their own collection, or gave them to others, or used them as dowry gifts for their daughters when they got married.

The function is actually a bit similar to modern precious literary games, calligraphy and painting and the like.

Anyway, the meaning of collection is greater than the meaning of actual use.

But this thing is rare, and rare things are more expensive, so there is no doubt that this thing is a good thing.

The three boxes of gold from Haihunhou were obviously also rewarded by the emperor.

It is very common for the emperor to reward the princes and princes with gold.

Of course, after the princes and princes obtained gold in their fiefs, they would also make this standard gold cake.

That is, the standard gold measurement unit "gold" in the Western Han Dynasty!
Now, as long as these golds made into gold cakes and horseshoe gold are weighed, you can know how much a piece of gold in the Western Han Dynasty weighs, and whether it is equivalent to "one catty" as most scholars think!
Chen Han and the others were not made to wait.

The next day, the single gold cake and the single horseshoe gold that were cleaned out first were weighed.

Sure enough, Chinese scholars still have two brushes.

The single weight of gold cake is 247 grams.

The single weight of horseshoe gold is 250 grams.

This shows that a piece of gold in the Han Dynasty was probably between 245 and 250 grams!
This is about the same as 248 grams per catty in the Western Han Dynasty!
It also shows that it is true that one gold in the Western Han Dynasty is one catty!
It is worth mentioning that in ancient China, the unit of "jin" was not static, on the contrary, it changed very quickly.

For example, in the early days of Chu State, a catty was equivalent to about 220 grams.

After arriving in the Warring States Period, according to calculations based on the wooden scales and copper weights unearthed from the tombs of the Warring States Period of Chu, the weight of a catty in Chu State gradually became 250 grams.

By the time of the Qin State, the Gaonuhe stone copper right unearthed from the Afang Palace site was written to weigh one stone (one hundred and twenty catties). According to the measurement, the total weight was 30750 grams, which was converted to about 256.3 grams per catty.

According to the calculation of the weight of a catty in the unearthed arsenal of the Western Han Dynasty, a catty in the Western Han Dynasty was about 252 grams.

According to the copper balance of Wang Mang's new dynasty unearthed in Gansu, it is about 249.6 grams per catty.

The Eastern Han Dasinong copper unearthed in 1981 weighs 2996 catties, and the actual measurement is 249.7 grams, which translates to [-] grams per catty.

It can be seen that Huaxia's weight unit was not so accurate at the beginning, and then gradually became more and more accurate.

After the Eastern Han Dynasty, 250 grams per catty was basically very accurate, unlike before, sometimes it was 256 grams per catty, and sometimes it was 252 grams.

However, after the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the weight of a catty gradually began to rise.

A catty of Qi in the Southern Dynasties was equivalent to about 375 grams, a catty in the Liang and Chen periods of the Southern Dynasties was equivalent to 250, and a catty in the Northern Wei and Northern Qi was equivalent to 500 grams.In the early years of the Northern Zhou Dynasty and the Sui Dynasty, a catty rose to 700 grams, which was heavier than the current catty.

It's just that at the end of the Sui Dynasty, a catty fell back to 250 grams, and it no longer lived up to the previous situation.

From the Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, a catty fluctuated between 640 grams and 684.768 grams.

For example, the Jiayou Nian bronze rule unearthed in Xiangtan, Hunan in 1975, said to weigh one hundred catties, and the measured weight was 64000 grams, which is equivalent to 640 grams per catty.

After the Yuan Dynasty, a catty gradually fell back to less than 600 grams.

In the third year of Apocalypse, the measured weight of Sanliang in Wuxian County, Changzhou weighed 109.3 grams, which is equivalent to 582 grams per catty.

In the 29th year of Qianlong, the Ministry of Industry built 500 taels of weight, with a total weight of 18700 grams, which is equivalent to 598.4 grams per catty.

At this time, the weight of a catty is already very close to the modern city catty.

As for when the modern market is determined, it will have to wait until the late Qing Dynasty, when China and Western civilization have a lot of exchanges.

After the 1901rd International Conference of Weights and Measures in 3 stipulated that the kilogram was the unit of mass, China gradually accepted this measurement method.

Because a kilogram is about the same level as a catty, it is also commonly called a kilogram to distinguish it from the city catty.

It can be seen that there is a very large gap in the "one catty" of China in different periods.

The same catty was only 250 grams in the Qin and Han Dynasties, but it was more than 500 to [-] grams in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Therefore, when these small details are not clear, when many people read historical documents, it is easy to regard the "one catty" of all periods as 500 grams, and then a lot of jokes will be made.

Even many scholars have made mistakes when calculating the degree of social development in different ages because they are not very clear about the weight of different periods.

For example, if it is the same catty, people in the Han Dynasty ate two catties of staple food, and people in the Qing Dynasty ate two catties of staple food. Can it be the same?

Obviously it is the same two catties, but people in the Han Dynasty ate less!
But if you don't notice the difference in weight, some scholars will mistakenly think that people in the Han Dynasty ate quite well.

Of course, this is just an analogy.

After the weights of the standard gold cakes and horseshoe gold in Haihunhou's tomb were measured, the most important impact was to solve an unresolved problem.

How much is a piece of gold in the Western Han Dynasty!
Now I know that one gold in the Western Han Dynasty is actually one Han Jin, and only "gold" and "jin" are used to distinguish upper coins from lower coins.

Gold is listed currency, and the unit is gold.

Copper coins are lower coins, and the unit is catty.

Yes, although the basic unit of copper coins is five baht, they also use "jin" as a unit.

For example, when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty rewarded ministers, he once rewarded thousands of catties and hundreds of gold.

Qian Wanjin is easy to understand, but the weight of "hundred gold" has always puzzled scholars before.

During the Western Han Dynasty, gold was an extremely rare wealth.

According to the official price comparison, one thousand gold is equivalent to 1000 million yuan.

In the Han Dynasty, one piece of gold was theoretically equivalent to 1 yuan, but in fact, the value of gold was higher than that.

During the time of Emperor Wenwen of the Han Dynasty, the total property of ten middle-class families was only one hundred gold.

To put down the Wu-Chu Rebellion, Emperor Jing of Han rewarded Dou Ying with only one thousand pieces of gold.

Wei Qing was a great general who made great achievements in defeating the Xiongnu, and the reward from Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty Liu Che was only one thousand gold.

But how much is this "one gold" that makes it so rare, scholars have always been quite confused.

There have been speculations that one gold is equivalent to one hundred taels, and there have also been speculations that one gold is equal to one catty, and some scholars believe that one gold is equal to ten catties of gold.

After all, Liu Che rewarded Wei Qing with only one thousand gold, which shows that one gold must be worth a lot.

Finally, now I know.

One piece of gold in the Western Han Dynasty is 250 grams, then one thousand pieces of gold is 250 kilograms, five hundred catties of gold!

This is indeed an astronomical sum!

(End of this chapter)