Long before supermarkets, laboratories or pharmacies existed, our ancestors were already asking questions that seem surprisingly modern to us: how do we know if a particular piece of metal is worth as much as another? Is it fair that I receive this amount of grain in exchange … a gold coin? These seemingly simple questions were the starting point for one of the oldest and most transcendental inventions in history: the scale.
The need to regret arose when human beings moved beyond mere subsistence and began exchanging products. Let’s imagine for a moment two characters in Antiquity: one with a bag of wheat, the other with a small copper ingot or gold nuggets. The question inevitably arises: how do we know if the barter is fair? This concern led, more than 5,000 years ago, to the invention of the first scales, precursors of our modern digital scales.
Weighing in ancient Egypt
The oldest traces of scales come from the first great river civilizations: Egypt and Mesopotamia. There, in temples and urban centers, large-scale trade arose. The Egyptians, around 3000 BC, developed the first scale for which we have archaeological evidence: the equal-arm scale.
This balance consisted of a horizontal bar or crosspiece, suspended exactly in the center by a rope or support. At the ends of the bar, two saucers hung from identical wires. On one plate the object to be weighed was placed, on the other small reference weights were added until the crossbar was perfectly horizontal. If the bar tilted to one side, weight had to be added or removed until both sides were balanced.
This simple but ingenious invention allowed humans for the first time to compare weights accurately and objectively. It was not about the strength or judgment of a single person: it was about balance and symmetry, principles that the Egyptians valued deeply. both in art and in everyday life.
Symbol of justice and order
It is no coincidence that the scales were one of the great symbols of Egyptian civilization. Associated with the goddess Maat, incarnation of order and justice, the scales are represented in the famous judgments of the dead in the Book of the Dead. There the heart of the deceased was placed in one saucer and, in the other, the feather of Maat, if the two were balanced, the deceased had had a righteous life and deserved to reach eternity.
In this way, the scale was not only an instrument of commerce, it was also an instrument of justice and philosophy. Measuring and weighing have become a means of seeking not only material, but also moral balance.
Expansion, improvement and diversity
The Egyptian scale quickly expanded to other civilizations, such as Mesopotamia, Phenicia, Greece, and Rome. Each culture gradually perfected the device and its weights. Thus were born weights made of stone, bronze, copper or lead, and measurement systems which sometimes vary from one city to another.
In ancient Greece and Rome, scales gained notable importance in markets and forums, ensuring fair sales and increasing confidence in trade. The Romans even legislated the use of scales and weights, and since then the image of the goddess Justice (Iustitia) has held scales.
Even in distant cultures, such as those of ancient Hinduism and China, similar solutions flourished. Scales originated in China around 4,000 years ago and developed unique weighing instruments such as the Roman or “steelyard” scale, where a single uneven arm was used to weigh objects using a fixed counterweight that moved along the arm. This mechanism allowed larger weights to be measured with less effort and greater flexibility.
The art of weighing: technology and reliability
The key to early scales was precision. The weights – long called standards – had to be exactly the same as each other, which was not always easy without modern manufacturing instruments. For this reason, official weights were usually kept in temples or central locations in each city and could only be used in the presence of authorities or under the supervision of inspectors. In fact, peso fraud was one of the most serious crimes of ancient times, punished severely.
The profession of scale manufacturer is gradually becoming one of the most respected and demanding. Not only manual skills were required, but also mathematical and geometric knowledge to maintain symmetry and sensitivity. And the invention of the ladder was much more than the development of a useful “gadget”: it transformed the way humans related to the world. Measuring and weighing marked the beginning of a new stage of reason, where quantification and comparison gradually replaced pure intuition and force. With the balance, the science of weighing, metrology was born and, with it, the momentum towards a vision of the world based on objective relationships.
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