Watch List notes:

The Eparch Collection of Roman, Byzantine and Islamic Weights
LATE ROMAN – BYZANTINE COMMERCIAL WEIGHTS

Circa 7th century or later, c, 10th-13th century. Weight of 1-libra (Brass, 68x16mm, 319.28 g), a thick discoid commercial-weight with two small grooves on the edge (as MAH A 20); a flat recessed bottom with a small centering hole and a wide raised rim; and a flat recessed top with an outer raised rim, an inner raised circle and a prominent, raised, centering boss, libra of 319.28 g. Within the inner circle, [ΛΙ] (the Ι curved) Α, with cross between pellets above; in the outer circle, wreath with an inscription in a cruciform arrangement: Θ+∍-ΟV-ΧΑ-ΡΙC. Rev. Plain. Bendall 111 (very similar but much more crudely done). Kürkman p. 44. A solid and impressive piece with a dark green and gold patina. Pockmarks on the reverse and some very heavy slashes on the rim (but with no affect on the top design), otherwise, about extremely fine.

From the Eparch Collection, acquired from the Simmons Gallery in London.
The edge damage looks as if it was done in relatively modern times, probably by a finder who had tested the edge in the hope that it was made from gold! This type of weight, with the two raised concentric circles and the central lifting boss, is generally placed (by Tekin and Campagnolo, for example) in the 7th century; however, M. A. Eser, who wrote the section on Byzantine weights in Kürkman, suggests that these weights should be dated to the 10th-13th centuries. In some ways this would make sense since we, otherwise, basically have no weights of any kind for several centuries, despite the fact that they must have been used! Some stylistic evidence for this later date comes from the 2 ounkia piece from the Kircher collection (Spink Taisei/Numismatica Ars Classica 52, 1, 26 October 1994, 790), which has a floriated cross on the reverse, a type that appears much later than the 7th century. However, Bendall 122 provides us with a problem for this late dating, since it apparently is inscribed on its reverse with an inscription in the name of Caliph Al-Walid I (705-715): Assuming that inscription is genuine, these weights have to be of the early 8th century.