Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian) · amulet
Weight in the Form of a Frog
Description
Ancient Egyptians used weights, like this small frog, to help calculate the value of goods. One Ancient Egyptian unit of measurement was the qedet , equivalent to about nine grams. While this piece is small, it weighs 36.1 grams, or about 4 qedets . Since some animals were associated with favorable characteristics like strength and affluence, they became a popular form for weights during the New Kingdom. The Ancient Egyptians linked frogs to fertility and rebirth, likely because of the animal’s prolific reproduction. These ties to abundance may have made frogs a suitable form for objects used to determine value.
Cross-references (1)
- ARTIC-id 135135 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian).
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.