title: Pim weight
text: # Pim weight
  
  Pim weights were polished stones about 15 mm (5/8 inch) diameter, equal to about two-thirds of a Hebrew shekel. Many specimens have been found since their initial discovery early in the 20th century, and each one weighs about 7.6 grams, compared to 11.5 grams of a shekel. Its name comes from the inscription seen across the top of its dome shape: the Phoenician letters 𐤐𐤉‬‬𐤌‬ (Hebrew פים‎, transliterated pym).
  
  ## Impact
  
  Prior to the discovery of the weights by archaeologists, scholars did not know how to translate the word פִּים (pîm) in 1 Samuel 13:21. Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister's excavations at Gezer (1902-1905 and 1907-1909) were published in 1912 with an illustration showing one such weight, which Macalister compared to another published in 1907 by Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau.
  
  Here is the 1611 translation of the King James Version of the Bible:
  
      Yet they had a file for the mattocks, and for the coulters, and for the forks, and for the axes, and to sharpen the goads.
  
  The 1982 New King James Version rendered it:
  
      And the charge for a sharpening was a pim for the plowshares, the mattocks, the forks, and the axes, and to set the points of the goads.
  
  ## Photos
  
  | Top-view of an unprovenanced pim weight | Side-view of an unprovenanced pim weight |
  | - | - |
  