Thus when the Russian weight system was recorded in the time of Peter the Great the unit both for precious metals and goods was found to be the _Zolotnic_ or gold piece. Thus--
Dolja = ·0444 grammes = wheat-grain. Zolotnic = 4·265 ” = 96 w.g. Funt = 409·511 ” = 96 zolotnic, or 9216 w.g.
Here, then, _in wheat grains_ the Funt is the light Mina Attica over again, Romanised in its divisions. The Zolotnic is the solidus or half-stater. But in actual weight the pound is exactly half of the ancient Eastern gold mina of 818 grammes.
The Pfund of Silesia (Breslau), according to Martini, was 405 grammes, and that of Poland (Cracow) the same. Only Sweden and Riga seem to have adopted or preserved higher standards, the double mark of Sweden being 425 and that of Riga 419 grammes; but even these fell far short of the standard weight of 16 Roman ounces, viz. 436 grammes. But throughout, low as the standard of the Baltic _Funts_ or double marks may have been, they were divided according to the Roman commercial weight system into _ores_ or ounces and _loths_ or half-ounces, and _gwentschen_ or drachmas of one eighth of an ounce, just as if they were of full Imperial weight. The marks and the ores remained, but the old division of _ores_ into ortugs or staters had long ago disappeared.
The division into marks, ores, and ortugs was, however, in full force at the time of the Norse laws, both for gold and silver. And the evidence of actual weights seems to show, not only that for the purposes of the Eastern trade routes, reckoning in marks, ores, and ortugs was in common use, but also that the standard, like that of the Merovingian coinage, was the ancient Eastern standard.
Thus the following weights, believed to belong to the Viking period, from the island of Gotland, are now in the Royal Museum at Stockholm (Nos. 4752 and 5984).
[Sidenote: The ortug in weight = Eastern stater or two Merovingian solidi.]
o o o o o o 819 grammes = 100 staters or ortugs of 8·19 o o o o
The unit of these weights is exactly the Eastern stater of 8·18 or two Merovingian solidi.[173]
Whether this standard had been arrived at independently of the Merovingian standard, or adopted from it, we must not stop to inquire. It is enough that the ortug at the date of the laws through Roman influence had come to be reckoned as one third of the ounce.