_, does not look probable as occurring in a list of substances of
this kind.
_LXX._ Alexandria may be pretty certainly named. What Bishop Westcott
calls "an Alexandrine hand" (_D.B._ I. p. 448 ed. 1, 714 ed. 2) has been
generally deemed apparent. So Bissell says: "The contents furnish
tolerably safe evidence of its Egyptian origin." But this does not seem
to agree very well with his note on v. 2, quoted at the beginning of
this chapter.
It might have been thought that the weights and measures which enter
into this story in v. 3 of both versions, and in v. 27 of LXX, would
have afforded some valuable local indications. But unfortunately for
this requirement, the weights and measures of the ancient world were so
much assimilated as to yield, in the question before us, no certain
clue. Alexandria too, being a great commercial centre, had become
somewhat syncretistic. As P. Smith remarks, in his article _Mensura_, in
_D. Gk. & Rom. A._ (1872, p. 754b), "The Roman system, which was
probably derived from the Greek, agreed with the Babylonian both in
weights and measures.
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