Talent Conversion Chart

We only include several basic units here for you to convert historical units to contemporary ones. A more comprehensive list of metric units is available on the main weight conversion page.

Many ancient weights were associated with currency designating the corresponding amount of silver. The same was true for Greek units of weight. There were two dominant weight standard, one originated in Euboea (second largest Greek island after Crete), the other was from Aegina. Archeologists have found though the real weights used in different cities varied greatly.

The base Roman unit of weight was libra (Roman pound) that contained 12 uncias. Modern estimates of the libra ranges from 322 to 329 grams with 328.9 grams an accepted figure. The base unit for coins was as that used to be 12 uncias initially and then gradually reduced to only half an uncia. Another silver coin was called denarius equal to 10 asses (from Latin dēnī - containing ten), it was later recalibrated to contain 16 asses or four sestertii. A literal meaning of each unit is given in parentheses.

These units were used in Portugal, Brazil and other countries of the Portuguese Empire until the adoption of the metric system in 19th century.