Batman (mass measure)
Encyclopedia
The batman was a unit
of mass
used in the Ottoman Empire
and among Turkic peoples of the Russian Empire
. It has also been recorded as a unit of area
in Uyghur
-speaking regions of Central Asia. The name is Turkic (Ottoman Turkish
; Chagatai
), but was also sometimes used for the equivalent unit in Persia
( من , man). The equivalent unit in British India was anglicized as the maund
. The value of the batman (or maund) varied considerably from place to place.
n origin, with Sir Henry Yule
attributing Akkadian
origins to the word. The Hebrew
maneh (מנה) and the Ancient Greek
mina
(μνᾶ) are thought to be cognate. It was originally equal to one-ninth of the weight of an artaba of water, or approximately four kilogram
s in modern units. İnalcık
believes the ancient Persian
patimāna may have come from the late Assyrian
word for "mana of the king". The man or batman spread throughout Arabia and Persia: it was adopted by the Ottoman Empire, and brought to India by the Mughal Empire
. The first attestation which gives a comparison to European weights was by Pegolotti
in his Pratica della mercatura
, written about 1340. He reported the batman as the main unit of mass in Ayasluğ ("Altoluogo di Turchia" to Pegolotti; modern Selçuk
, in western Turkey
), equivalent to 32 Genoese
pounds (libbre).
(probably modern Baghdad
), where it was said to be equal to "7 pound and 5 ounces English weight". In the central Ottoman system of weights, the batman was equal to six okas, as is attested in 1811 in Aleppo
, 1821 in Baghdad and in 1850 in Constantinople
. At this point, the batman was equal to 16 lb.
8 oz.
avoirdupois
(7.484 kg
).
The mann ( مَنّ ) had doubtless formed a part of the Arabian system of weights before the arrival of the Ottomans. It was divided into uqiyya
s (the number varying with the location), while ten mann made one frazil. A still larger unit of mass was the bahar
, of ten to forty frazils. The Arabic mann was smaller than the Ottoman batman at about 2–3 lb. av. (1–1½ kg), except in Basra
where there were two maund
s in use, both much larger than either the Arabic mann or the Ottoman batman.
in 1740, there were said to be two batmans (as in Persia): the "great batman" of 18 Russian pounds and the "lesser batman" of 9¼ Russian pounds (approx. 3.8 kg).
In Uyghur
, the batman was also a measure of land area, the area that could be sown with one batman (in mass) of seed.
Idel-Ural
The Tatar batman
is an equivalent to 1000 pood
or 16.4 tonne
s.
The two main commercial weights in Persia
were the tabrézy man ( من تبریز ), literally the man of Tabriz
, and the sháhy man ( من شاء ), literally the Shah
's man, which was twice as large. The sháhy man was particularly used in Shiraz
and Isfahan. Kelly
also distinguishes a man used for copra
and "provisions" at Gamron (modern Bandar-Abbas) of 7 lb. 12 oz. av. (3.5153 kg).
The United Nations
Statistical Office found a wide range of values for the man in Iran
in 1966, from 3 kg to 53 kg. The man was divided into mithqal
s (the number depending on the locality): larger subdivisions included the abbassi and the ratl. The term batman appears to be reserved for the tabrézy man, approximately 2.969 kg in 1966.
, but varied widely between different localities. In Kandahar
is was about 8 lb. av. (3½ kg), while in Peshawar
it was 80 lb. av. (35 kg).
Units of measurement
A unit of measurement is a definite magnitude of a physical quantity, defined and adopted by convention and/or by law, that is used as a standard for measurement of the same physical quantity. Any other value of the physical quantity can be expressed as a simple multiple of the unit of...
of mass
Mass
Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...
used in the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
and among Turkic peoples of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
. It has also been recorded as a unit of area
Area
Area is a quantity that expresses the extent of a two-dimensional surface or shape in the plane. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat...
in Uyghur
Uyghur language
Uyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...
-speaking regions of Central Asia. The name is Turkic (Ottoman Turkish
Ottoman Turkish language
The Ottoman Turkish language or Ottoman language is the variety of the Turkish language that was used for administrative and literary purposes in the Ottoman Empire. It borrows extensively from Arabic and Persian, and was written in a variant of the Perso-Arabic script...
; Chagatai
Chagatai language
The Chagatai language is an extinct Turkic language which was once widely spoken in Central Asia, and remained the shared literary language there until the early twentieth century...
), but was also sometimes used for the equivalent unit in Persia
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
( من , man). The equivalent unit in British India was anglicized as the maund
Maund
The maund is the anglicized name for a traditional unit of mass used in British India, and also in Afghanistan, Persia and Arabia: the same unit in the Moghul Empire was sometimes written as mun in English, while the equivalent unit in the Ottoman Empire and Central Asia was called the batman...
. The value of the batman (or maund) varied considerably from place to place.
Origins
The man as a unit of weight is thought to be of at least ChaldeaChaldea
Chaldea or Chaldaea , from Greek , Chaldaia; Akkadian ; Hebrew כשדים, Kaśdim; Aramaic: ܟܐܠܕܘ, Kaldo) was a marshy land located in modern-day southern Iraq which came to briefly rule Babylon...
n origin, with Sir Henry Yule
Henry Yule
Sir Henry Yule was a Scottish Orientalist.He was born at Inveresk, Scotland, near Edinburgh, the son of Major William Yule , translator of the Apothegms of Ali. Henry Yule was educated at Edinburgh, Addiscombe, and Chatham, and joined the Bengal Engineers in 1840...
attributing Akkadian
Akkadian language
Akkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
origins to the word. The Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
maneh (מנה) and the Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
mina
Mina (unit)
The mina is an ancient Near Eastern unit of weight equivalent to 60 shekels. The mina, like the shekel, was also a unit of currency; in ancient Greece it was equal to 100 drachmae. In the first century AD, it amounted to about a fourth of the wages earned annually by an agricultural worker...
(μνᾶ) are thought to be cognate. It was originally equal to one-ninth of the weight of an artaba of water, or approximately four kilogram
Kilogram
The kilogram or kilogramme , also known as the kilo, is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram , which is almost exactly equal to the mass of one liter of water...
s in modern units. İnalcık
Halil Inalcik
-Biography:He was born in Istanbul to a Crimean Tatar family, which left Crimea for Constantinople in 1905. His birthday is unknown but İnalcık chose 26 May 1916 for his birthday. He attended Balıkesir Teacher Training School and then Ankara University, Faculty of Language, History and Geography,...
believes the ancient Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
patimāna may have come from the late Assyrian
Syriac language
Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...
word for "mana of the king". The man or batman spread throughout Arabia and Persia: it was adopted by the Ottoman Empire, and brought to India by the Mughal Empire
Mughal Empire
The Mughal Empire , or Mogul Empire in traditional English usage, was an imperial power from the Indian Subcontinent. The Mughal emperors were descendants of the Timurids...
. The first attestation which gives a comparison to European weights was by Pegolotti
Francesco Balducci Pegolotti
Francesco Balducci Pegolotti , also Francesco di Balduccio, was a Florentine merchant and politician. His father, Balduccio Pegolotti, represented Florence in commercial negotiations with Siena in 1311...
in his Pratica della mercatura
Pratica della mercatura
The Florentine merchant Francesco Balducci Pegolotti compiled his Libro di divisamenti di paesi e di misuri di mercatanzie e daltre cose bisognevoli di sapere a mercatanti between 1335 and 1343, probably within the period 1339 to 1340...
, written about 1340. He reported the batman as the main unit of mass in Ayasluğ ("Altoluogo di Turchia" to Pegolotti; modern Selçuk
Selçuk
Selçuk is the central town of Selçuk district, İzmir Province in Turkey, 2 km northeast of Ephesus.Its original Greek name, Agios Theológos referred to John the Theologian. Under the Ottoman Empire, it was known as Ayasoluk...
, in western Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
), equivalent to 32 Genoese
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
pounds (libbre).
Ottoman Empire
The batman (or bateman) was first recorded in English in 1599, in BabylonBabylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
(probably modern Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
), where it was said to be equal to "7 pound and 5 ounces English weight". In the central Ottoman system of weights, the batman was equal to six okas, as is attested in 1811 in Aleppo
Aleppo
Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...
, 1821 in Baghdad and in 1850 in Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
. At this point, the batman was equal to 16 lb.
Pound (mass)
The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in the Imperial, United States customary and other systems of measurement...
8 oz.
Ounce
The ounce is a unit of mass with several definitions, the most commonly used of which are equal to approximately 28 grams. The ounce is used in a number of different systems, including various systems of mass that form part of the imperial and United States customary systems...
avoirdupois
Avoirdupois
The avoirdupois system is a system of weights based on a pound of 16 ounces. It is the everyday system of weight used in the United States and is still widely used to varying degrees by many people in Canada, the United Kingdom, and some other former British colonies despite the official adoption...
(7.484 kg
Kilogram
The kilogram or kilogramme , also known as the kilo, is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram , which is almost exactly equal to the mass of one liter of water...
).
Arabia
| Place Modern transliterations of place names have been used where possible. |
Local | Imperial | Metric Metric system The metric system is an international decimalised system of measurement. France was first to adopt a metric system, in 1799, and a metric system is now the official system of measurement, used in almost every country in the world... kg Kilogram The kilogram or kilogramme , also known as the kilo, is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram , which is almost exactly equal to the mass of one liter of water... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| lb. Pound (mass) The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in the Imperial, United States customary and other systems of measurement... |
oz. Ounce The ounce is a unit of mass with several definitions, the most commonly used of which are equal to approximately 28 grams. The ounce is used in a number of different systems, including various systems of mass that form part of the imperial and United States customary systems... |
dr. Dram (unit) The dram was historically both a coin and a weight. Currently it is both a small mass in the Apothecaries' system of weights and a small unit of volume... |
|||
| Bayt al-Faqih Bayt al-Faqih Bayt al-Faqīh or Beit al-Faqih ; ) is a city in Al Hudaydah Governorate in Yemen. It is located on the pilgrimage and trade route across the Tihamah plain between Al Hudaydah and Ta'izz. It is 50km south of Al Hudaydah and 150km southwest of the Yemeni capital of San‘a’ and lies at an altitude of... |
frazil | 2 | 0 | 10 | 0.9249 |
| Jeddah Jeddah Jeddah, Jiddah, Jidda, or Jedda is a city located on the coast of the Red Sea and is the major urban center of western Saudi Arabia. It is the largest city in Makkah Province, the largest sea port on the Red Sea, and the second largest city in Saudi Arabia after the capital city, Riyadh. The... |
30 uqiyyas | 2 | 3 | 1.0092 | |
| Mocha Mocha, Yemen Mocha or Mokha is a port city on the Red Sea coast of Yemen. Until it was eclipsed in the 19th century by Aden and Hodeida, Mocha was the principal port for Yemen's capital Sana'a.-Overview:... |
40 uqiyyas | 3 | 5 | 0 | 1.5025 |
| Source: Kelly Patrick Kelly (metrologist) Patrick Kelly was a British metrologist, best known for his comparative studies of weights and measures collected in his works Universal Cambist and Oriental Metrology... 's Oriental Metrology (1832) |
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The mann ( مَنّ ) had doubtless formed a part of the Arabian system of weights before the arrival of the Ottomans. It was divided into uqiyya
Awqiyyah
The "Awqiyyah" or "uqiyya" is the name for a historical unit of weight that varies between regions, as listed below.Egypt: 37gAleppo: 320gBeirut: 213.39gJerusalem: 240gMalta: ~26.46 g...
s (the number varying with the location), while ten mann made one frazil. A still larger unit of mass was the bahar
Bahar (unit)
Bahar is an obsolete unit of measurement.* In Iran it was a unit of length approximately equal to 3.25 cm * In Oman, it was a unit of mass equal to approximately 808 kg...
, of ten to forty frazils. The Arabic mann was smaller than the Ottoman batman at about 2–3 lb. av. (1–1½ kg), except in Basra
Basra
Basra is the capital of Basra Governorate, in southern Iraq near Kuwait and Iran. It had an estimated population of two million as of 2009...
where there were two maund
Maund
The maund is the anglicized name for a traditional unit of mass used in British India, and also in Afghanistan, Persia and Arabia: the same unit in the Moghul Empire was sometimes written as mun in English, while the equivalent unit in the Ottoman Empire and Central Asia was called the batman...
s in use, both much larger than either the Arabic mann or the Ottoman batman.
Turkey
The Turkish system of weights and measures was metrified in 1931. The oka was redefined as exactly one kilogram, while the batman became ten okas (10 kg).Central Asia
The batman was used in Central Asia up until at least the 18th century. In KhivaKhiva
Khiva is a city of approximately 50,000 people located in Xorazm Province, Uzbekistan. It is the former capital of Khwarezmia and the Khanate of Khiva...
in 1740, there were said to be two batmans (as in Persia): the "great batman" of 18 Russian pounds and the "lesser batman" of 9¼ Russian pounds (approx. 3.8 kg).
In Uyghur
Uyghur language
Uyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...
, the batman was also a measure of land area, the area that could be sown with one batman (in mass) of seed.
Idel-UralIdel-UralIdel-Ural is a historical region in Eastern Europe, in what is today Russia. The name literally means Volga-Urals in the Tatar language. The frequently used Russian variant is Volgo-Uralye...
The Tatar batmanObsolete Tatar units of measurement
A native system of weights and measures was used by Tatars until 1924, but became obsolete when the Soviet Union adopted the metric system.The Tatar system shares many units with the Russian system A native system of weights and measures was used by Tatars until 1924, but became obsolete when the...
is an equivalent to 1000 pood
Pood
Pood , is a unit of mass equal to 40 funt . It is approximately 16.38 kilograms . It was used in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Pood was first mentioned in a number of documents of the 12th century....
or 16.4 tonne
Tonne
The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...
s.
Persia
| Place |
Local | Imperial | Metric Metric system The metric system is an international decimalised system of measurement. France was first to adopt a metric system, in 1799, and a metric system is now the official system of measurement, used in almost every country in the world... kg Kilogram The kilogram or kilogramme , also known as the kilo, is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram , which is almost exactly equal to the mass of one liter of water... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| lb. Pound (mass) The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in the Imperial, United States customary and other systems of measurement... |
oz. Ounce The ounce is a unit of mass with several definitions, the most commonly used of which are equal to approximately 28 grams. The ounce is used in a number of different systems, including various systems of mass that form part of the imperial and United States customary systems... |
dr. Dram (unit) The dram was historically both a coin and a weight. Currently it is both a small mass in the Apothecaries' system of weights and a small unit of volume... |
|||
| Bandar-Abbas ("Gamron") |
tabrézy | 6 | 12 | 0 | 3.0617 |
| sháhy | 13 | 8 | 0 | 6.1235 | |
| Bushehr Bushehr Bushehr Bushehr lies in a vast plain running along the coastal region on the Persian Gulf coast of southwestern Iran. It is the chief seaport of the country and the administrative centre of its province. Its location is about south of Tehran. The local climate is hot and humid.The city... |
720 mithqals | 7 | 10 | 15 | 3.4852 |
| Shiraz Shiraz Shiraz may refer to:* Shiraz, Iran, a city in Iran* Shiraz County, an administrative subdivision of Iran* Vosketap, Armenia, formerly called ShirazPeople:* Hovhannes Shiraz, Armenian poet* Ara Shiraz, Armenian sculptor... |
600 mithqals | 12 | 10 | 14.4 | 5.7521 |
| Tabriz Tabriz Tabriz is the fourth largest city and one of the historical capitals of Iran and the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. Situated at an altitude of 1,350 meters at the junction of the Quri River and Aji River, it was the second largest city in Iran until the late 1960s, one of its former... |
300 mithqals | 6 | 5 | 7.2 | 2.8761 |
| Source: Kelly Patrick Kelly (metrologist) Patrick Kelly was a British metrologist, best known for his comparative studies of weights and measures collected in his works Universal Cambist and Oriental Metrology... 's Oriental Metrology (1832) |
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The two main commercial weights in Persia
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
were the tabrézy man ( من تبریز ), literally the man of Tabriz
Tabriz
Tabriz is the fourth largest city and one of the historical capitals of Iran and the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. Situated at an altitude of 1,350 meters at the junction of the Quri River and Aji River, it was the second largest city in Iran until the late 1960s, one of its former...
, and the sháhy man ( من شاء ), literally the Shah
Shah
Shāh is the title of the ruler of certain Southwest Asian and Central Asian countries, especially Persia , and derives from the Persian word shah, meaning "king".-History:...
's man, which was twice as large. The sháhy man was particularly used in Shiraz
Shiraz
Shiraz may refer to:* Shiraz, Iran, a city in Iran* Shiraz County, an administrative subdivision of Iran* Vosketap, Armenia, formerly called ShirazPeople:* Hovhannes Shiraz, Armenian poet* Ara Shiraz, Armenian sculptor...
and Isfahan. Kelly
Patrick Kelly (metrologist)
Patrick Kelly was a British metrologist, best known for his comparative studies of weights and measures collected in his works Universal Cambist and Oriental Metrology...
also distinguishes a man used for copra
Copra
Copra is the dried meat, or kernel, of the coconut. Coconut oil extracted from it has made copra an important agricultural commodity for many coconut-producing countries. It also yields coconut cake which is mainly used as feed for livestock.-Production:...
and "provisions" at Gamron (modern Bandar-Abbas) of 7 lb. 12 oz. av. (3.5153 kg).
The United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
Statistical Office found a wide range of values for the man in Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
in 1966, from 3 kg to 53 kg. The man was divided into mithqal
Mithqal
Mithqal is a unit of mass equal to 4.25 grams and mostly used for precious metals, The Gold Dinar is equal to 1 Mithqal.-Conversion factors:-Usage of the Mithqal:...
s (the number depending on the locality): larger subdivisions included the abbassi and the ratl. The term batman appears to be reserved for the tabrézy man, approximately 2.969 kg in 1966.
Afghanistan
The mann was also used as a unit of mass in AfghanistanAfghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, but varied widely between different localities. In Kandahar
Kandahar
Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m above sea level...
is was about 8 lb. av. (3½ kg), while in Peshawar
Peshawar
Peshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan....
it was 80 lb. av. (35 kg).