Deben (unit)
ancient Egyptian weight unit
The deben was an ancient Egyptian weight unit.
Early Dynastic Period
The earliest evidence for deben is from the Early Dynastic Period. It was found at the site of Buto in Nile Delta. The weighing stone was uncovered in an archaeological context from Second Dynasty, in the so-called "labyrinth" building, it bears the inscription of the "friendly is the heart of Horus, director" (of the installation) "Hemsemenib". The inscribed value is of 3 deben, representing a unit of 29 grams (1.0 oz), likely the earliest copper deben. Based on this evidence, it was argued recently that copper and gold deben were used since Early Dynastic Period in ancient Egypt.
Old and Middle Kingdom
Set of balance beams and weighing stones from 10 to 100 units, likely deben, was painted on the wall of the tomb of Third Dynasty official Hesy-Ra at Saqqara. Stone weights from the Old Kingdom have been found, weighing about 13.6 g (0.48 oz; 0.44 ozt), giving presumed value of the gold deben, e.g. the weighing stone of king Userkaf. The same unit was used for the jasper weighing stone of the First Intermediate Period king Nebkaure Khety.
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This entry incorporates text from “Deben (unit)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.