What is an ounce?
The ounce is a unit of weight that is now largely obsolete and is only used for precious metals ; it already existed in Roman antiquity.
The weight of a standard ounce is 28.35 g.
The History of the Ounce
In the period around 5,500 BC, wheat and barley grains served as the basis for weight measurements, since their masses varied only minimally from one another.
The term ounce is derived from the Latin term uncia, which can be translated as one twelfth. In Roman culture, the Roman pound, which was set at the weight of 6,912 grains of wheat, was made up of twelve ounces. The Roman coinage was also based on this measurement system.
At the beginning of the Middle Ages, the Greek unit of weight, the Attic mine, was replaced by the Roman units, giving rise to different ounces. This is because the division based on the ounce was mixed with other systems, and the weight of the different grains also differed slightly. For example, the weight of a Nuremberg pound was 510 g, while a Berlin pound weighed 467 g.
Based on this, there were always different standardizations of the weight of the ounce and the pound – even today there are ounces of different weights.
