 This is attested in a 13th century Novgorod birch bark manuscript, where both ruble and grivna referred to 204 gramms (6.6 troy ounces) of silver.The casting of these pieces included some sort of cutting (the exact technology is unknown), hence the name from рубить ("rubit").Another version of the word's origin is that it comes from the Russian noun рубец ("rubets"), the seam that is left around a silver bullions after casting