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 Buto (, , ''Butu''), Bouto, Butus (, ''Boutos'')Herodotus ii. 59, 63, 155. or Butosus was a city that the Ancient Egyptians called Per-Wadjet. It was located 95 km east of Alexandria in the Nile Delta of Egypt. What in classical times the ...

Nile Delta The Nile Delta (, or simply , ) is the River delta, delta formed in Lower Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's larger deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the eas ...

. 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 , 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 Hesire (also read Hesy-Re and Hesy-Ra) was an ancient Egyptian high official during the early Third Dynasty of Egypt. His most notable title was ''Wer-ibeḥsenjw'', meaning either "Great one of the ivory cutters" or "Great one of the dentists", ...

Saqqara Saqqara ( : saqqāra ), also spelled Sakkara or Saccara in English , is an Egyptian village in the markaz (county) of Badrashin in the Giza Governorate, that contains ancient burial grounds of Egyptian royalty, serving as the necropolis for ...

. Stone weights from the

Old Kingdom In ancient Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom is the period spanning –2200 BC. It is also known as the "Age of the Pyramids" or the "Age of the Pyramid Builders", as it encompasses the reigns of the great pyramid-builders of the Fourth Dynast ...

have been found, weighing about , 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. From the Middle Kingdom date ''deben'' weight units used for particular metals, referred to as

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

deben and

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

deben, the former being about twice as heavy () as the latter. Such weights from the Middle Kingdom were discovered at Lisht, using gold deben, and copper deben.

Second Intermediate Period

At the

Second Intermediate Period The Second Intermediate Period dates from 1700 to 1550 BC. It marks a period when ancient Egypt was divided into smaller dynasties for a second time, between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom. The concept of a Secon ...

site of

Tell el-Dab'a Tell el-Dab'a is the modern name for the ancient city of Avaris, an archaeological site in the Nile Delta region of Egypt where the capital city of the Hyksos, once stood. Avaris was occupied by Asiatics from the end of the 12th through the 1 ...

were found sets of sphendonoid weighing stones confirming the use of

shekel A shekel or sheqel (; , , plural , ) is an ancient Mesopotamian coin, usually of silver. A shekel was first a unit of weight—very roughly 11 grams (0.35 ozt)—and became currency in ancient Tyre, Carthage and Hasmonean Judea. Name The wo ...

weighing system, both "Syrian" (9-9.5 g) and "Mesopotamian" (c. 8.1-8.5 g). Here presumably stems the changed weighing system of the New Kingdom, with a completely different deben unit.

New Kingdom

From the New Kingdom one ''deben'' was equal to about to . It was divided into ten ''kidet'' (alt. ''kit'', ''kite'' or ''qedet'') of c. to , or into what is referred to by

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , ''-logia''; ) is the scientific study of ancient Egypt. The topics studied include ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end ...

s as 'pieces', one twelfth of a ''deben'' weighing . It was frequently used to denote value of goods, by comparing their worth to a weight of

metal A metal () is a material that, when polished or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, electricity and thermal conductivity, heat relatively well. These properties are all associated wit ...

, generally

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

or copper. The value of the metal artefacts was expressed by deben, and the weight equalled the value.

Protocurrency

It has been speculated that pieces of metal weighing a deben were kept in boxes, taken to markets, and were used as a means of exchange. Archaeologists have been unable to find any such standardized pieces of precious metal. On the other hand, it is documented that ''debens'' served to compare values. On the well-known Juridical stela from the reign of the Sixteenth Dynasty king Nebiryraw I, debt of 60 gold deben (consisting in fact of gold, copper, grain, and clothes as listed on the stela) was worth the governorship of el-Kab. In the 19th Dynasty, a slave girl priced four deben and one kite of silver was paid for with various goods: 6 bronze vessels, 10 ''deben'' of copper, 15 linen garments, a shroud, a blanket, and a pot of honey.Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen Edwards, ''The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol 2, pt 1'', Cambridge University Press 1973, {{ISBN, 0-521-08230-7, p.390

Legacy

Deben appeared in the

computer game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from a display device, mo ...

Pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''wikt:pr ꜥꜣ, pr ꜥꜣ''; Meroitic language, Meroitic: 𐦲𐦤𐦧, ; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') was the title of the monarch of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty ( ...

'' as its

currency A currency is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a ''system of money'' in common use within a specific envi ...

(in the form of

References

Units of mass Egyptian hieroglyphs