Page 265 - Gulf Precis (1-B)_Neat

459

APPENDIX K.

Persian Money, Weights and Measure8.

Persian Money,
Dinar.—A nominal coin.
25 dinars = pul-i-siyah (a copper coin).
50 = 1 ebahi (a nominal coin).
100 = 1 sonar (from sad-dinar or 100 dinars or mahmudy).
200 = 1 abbasy (nominal).
500 = 1 paoabat (silver coin).
1,000 = 1 nazar dinar or kran,
1,250 = 1 rial (nominal).
10,000 = 1 toman (a Mongal word meaning 10,000).
Dela Yallo travelling about 1025 reckons a toman as equivalent to about £1-10. At
the time of Fryer (1677) its value was reduced to £3-10*. (see Yule's Hobson-jobson). At the
close of the 17tb century the Company’s Agents estimated the 1,000 tomans they got for
Gombroon customs at about £3,000.
When the East India Company's first enterprises commenced in Persia, 1614-15
1 abbasy was = 2 raabmudis.
= 4 8hahi8.
1 rial was = 13 shahis.
1 shahi was =4 d,
[See a brief account of the money, etc., collected by Richard Steele in 1615—No. 298 in
volume III of Letter received by the East India Company, and also page 402, the First
Letter Bookj. ______________
Persian Weights.
As at present—
A Busbire mann = 8 lbs. avoirdupois.
A Shiraz mnnn =7$ lbs. „
A Tabriz mand = 0f to 6$ lbs.
An Ispahan or Mann-i-Shah =2 Tabriz manns.
Steel reckoned the last in 1615 at 10 lbs. (See First Letter Book, page 462.)

Measures.
As at present taken—
1 Gazar Zar = 40 to 42 inohes.
1 Farasang = 3$ to 4$ miles.
As the time of Steel (1615) the ordinary measure for cloth was a yard (gaz) of 37
English inches, and for silk the Tarkish pike of 27 English inches—[ Letters received by the.
'East India Company, Volume III, page 176],

G.ICP, O.—No. 2578 F. D.~6-6-08.-25 —