The mina (also mĕnē, Aramaic; ) is an ancient Near Eastern unit of weight, roughly equivalent to a pound, which was divided into 60 shekels. The mina, like the shekel, was also a unit of currency. History Sumerian From earliest Sumerian times, a mina was a unit of weight. At first, talents and shekels had not yet been introduced. By the time of Ur-Nammu (shortly before 2000 BCE), the mina had a value of talent as well as 60 shekels. The weight of this mina is calculated at . Semitic languages The word mina comes from the ancient Semitic root / 'to count', Akkadian , (), / (/), (), . It is mentioned in the Bible, where Solomon is reported to have made 300 shields, each with 3 "mina" of gold (), or later after the Edict of Cyrus II of Persia the people are reported to have donated 5000 minas of silver for the reconstruction of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. In the Biblical story of Belshazzar's feast, the words mene, mene, tekel, upharsin appear on the wall (Daniel 5:25), which according to one interpretation can mean "mina, mina, shekel, and half-pieces", although Daniel interprets the words differently for King Belshazzar. Writings from Ugarit give the value of a mina as equivalent to fifty shekels. The prophet Ezekiel refers to a mina (maneh in the King James Version) also as 60 shekels, in the Book of Ezekiel 45:12. Jesus of Nazareth tells the "parable of the minas" in Luke 19:11–27, also told as the "parable of the talents" in Matthew 25:14–30. In later Jewish usage, the is equal in weight to 100 . From the Akkadian period, 2 mina was equal to 1 of water (cf. clepsydra, water clock). Greek In ancient Greece, the mina was known as the (). It originally equalled 70 drachmae but later, at the time of the statesman Solon (c. 594 BC), was increased to 100 drachmae. The Greek word () was borrowed from Semitic. Different city states used minae of different weights. The Aeginetan mina weighed . The Attic mina weighed . In Solon's day, according to Plutarch, the price of a sheep was one drachma or a medimnos (about 40kg) of wheat. Thus a mina was worth 100 sheep. Latin The word also occurs in Latin literature, but mainly in plays of Plautus and Terence adapted from Greek originals. In Terence's play Heauton