Equal-arm balance
Balanza de brazos iguales
- Date
- c. 3000 BCE · confidence low
- Place
- Naqada, Qena, Egypt
- Credited to
- Naqada culture and Nile merchants
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A lever with two equal arms and a pan at each end that compares a mass with standard weights. Polished stone weights from Predynastic Naqada tombs suggest its use in the 4th millennium BC, and it is the instrument used to weigh gold, copper and grain.
Predynastic weights are interpreted as a sign of balances, but the oldest surviving balances date from about 2500-2000 BC (Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Indus valley). The date of origin is an inference.
What it led to
- trade in metals and grain by weight in Egypt and Mesopotamia
- the ritual weighing of the heart in the Book of the Dead
- precision balances of chemists and goldsmiths until the 19th century