Researched
Weights & Standard Measures
Standard weights and lengths in the Indus Valley, Egypt and Mesopotamia make trade and taxes comparable.
Open in the interactive tree →Indus cities used stone weights in fixed ratios by about 2500 BC, Egypt had the royal cubit and Mesopotamia the shekel and mina. Shared standards let strangers trade and states collect taxes, and they lead to the metric system.
Prerequisites
- Trade & Division of Labor~7000 BC
- State & Administration~3000 BC
Unlocks
- Money~600 BCMetal money was valued by standard weights, from Mesopotamian silver shekels onwards
- Metric System1799The metric system replaced a patchwork of local weights and measures with one standard
Sources
More in Foundations of Civilization · Antiquity
- Writing~3200 BC
- Alphabet~1800 BC
- Sundial & Water Clock~1500 BC
- Libraries~650 BC
- Philosophy~585 BC
- Plato's Academy387 BC
- Calendar3rd millennium BC
- Paper~105 AD