Attic Talents to Grams (talent to g)

1 Attic talent equals 26,196 grams exactly.

1 Attic talent = 26,196 grams

How to convert Attic talents to grams

To convert Attic talents to grams, multiply the number of Attic talents by 26,196. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply grams by 0.00003817376699 (rounded).

grams = Attic talents × 26,196

Example: 10 Attic talents = 261,960 grams.

Approximate value. Standards for the Attic talent varied by place and period, so this converter uses the most commonly cited value. Treat results as estimates, not exact figures.

About these units

Attic Talent (talent)

Ancient GreekHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)Approximate value

About 26 kg, equal to 60 minas or 6,000 drachmas. A large unit used for silver and gold. Other talents (Roman, Hebrew, Babylonian) ranged from about 26 to 34 kg.

Talent comes from the Greek talanton, which originally meant a balance or something weighed. The Greeks took over the Babylonian scheme of sixty minas to the talent, reportedly through Phoenician traders, and the Attic talent became the largest everyday weight of Athens. One Attic talent equalled 60 minas or 6,000 drachmas. Modern estimates cluster around 26 kilograms, and the value used here, 26.196 kg, sits within a published range of about 25.8 to 26.2 kg.

Because it was so heavy, the talent worked as a unit of account for state finances and large payments, not a coin. A source on Athenian costs notes that in 415 BC a talent was roughly a month's pay for a trireme crew. Other talents differed considerably: about 30.2 kg for Babylon, about 32.3 kg for Rome and about 37 kg for Aegina, so the 26 kg used here applies to Athens alone. A talent is close to the mass of a typical eight-year-old child, or about 58 pounds.

1 Attic talent = 26.196 kilograms (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Talent (measurement); Wikipedia: Ancient Greek units of measurement; Wikipedia: Mina (unit)

Gram (g)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One thousandth of a kilogram. The standard unit for food quantities and small objects.

A gram was once defined as a small drop of the natural world. The French National Convention of 1795 set it as the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to a cube one hundredth of a metre on each side, a cubic centimetre. The reference temperature was first the melting point of ice and was later changed to the temperature of maximum density of water, about 4 degrees Celsius. The word came into French as gramme, from Late Latin gramma, itself from the Greek for a letter or small mark; in Late Antiquity it meant about one twenty-fourth of an ounce.

The gram was the base unit of mass in the centimetre-gram-second system, but in 1960 the SI took the kilogram as its base unit, which made the gram one thousandth of it. That is why it appears in so many everyday places: it is the standard for non-liquid ingredients in cooking and shopping, and nutrition labels commonly list contents per 100 g. For a sense of scale, a small paper clip or a pen cap weighs about a gram, and a Japanese 1-yen coin is close to exactly that, while a US penny is around 2.5 g.

1 gram = 0.001 kilograms (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Gram; Wikipedia: Kilogram

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