Monetary and Weight Measures of Eastern European Countries from Antiquity to the XIXth Century
Authors:   Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine, Zubko Andrii 
Published: October 2024

The first European civilisations emerged in the third and second millennia BC on the island of Crete and other Aegean islands, as well as in the southern territories of the Balkan Peninsula. The first European systems of measures, including weights, were created here. The first European writing system, the linear syllabic A and B script emerged on this land. The syllabic writing of the Minoan civilisation on Crete and the Mycenaean civilisation in the territory of modern mainland Greece was completely original. It had a great influence on the first alphabet on Earth, which was created in Phoenicia in the middle of the second millennium BC. In turn, the weights and measures of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilisations were formed under the influence of the system of weight measures of Ancient Sumer of the third millennium BC. The use of the written language and its integral component, the number system, contributed to the spread of unified weight measures over large areas. Numerous weighing systems were created in ancient Greece in the first millennium BC. Thanks to trade, they began to be used in the Balkan Peninsula – in Macedonia, Thrace, Illyria, as well as in the Northern Black Sea region, where there were ancient Greek colonies. The incorporation of the Balkan Peninsula and the territory of the ancient Greek colonies of the Northern Black Sea in the second and first centuries BC into the Roman Empire led to the use of the Roman system of weight measures in these lands. In the IV–XV centuries, the Byzantine measures derived from the Roman ones influenced the formation of the systems of measures of the Eastern European states through political and economic relations. In the second half of the first millennium, the first states were created in Eastern Europe – Bulgaria, Great Moravia, Hungary, Poland, and Ancient Rus. In the first half of the second millennium, the states of Serbia, Lithuania, Wallachia, Moldova, and others were formed. The weight systems of these countries were formed on the basis of natural measures of the primitive era, as well as the weight units borrowed from international trade. In the Middle Ages, Eastern European measures of weight were significantly influenced by those of the Carolingian Empire, the Germanic Empire, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The conquest of the Balkan Peninsula by the Ottoman Empire in the XV–XVI centuries led to the spread of Turkish measures in this area. This article analysis the origins of the ancient weight measures of Eastern Europe. The degree which peculiarities of political and economic development of particular countries and territories influenced the formation of weight systems was determined. Special attention was devoted to the relation between weight measures and aspects of the emergence and development of money in circulation, and the interaction between historical metrology and numismatics in studying processes. The mutual influence between weight system of various countries and the borrowing of certain foreign weight units in the course of international trade was considered.