Obols to Grams (obol to g)

1 obol equals 0.7276666667 grams (rounded).

1 obol = 0.7276666667 grams

How to convert obols to grams

To convert obols to grams, multiply the number of obols by 0.7276666667. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply grams by 1.374255612 (rounded).

grams = obols × 0.7276666667

Example: 10 obols = 7.276666667 grams.

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

About these units

Obol (obol)

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

One sixth of a drachma, about 0.73 g.

Before coins, Greek bullion money circulated as iron or bronze rods called obeloi, which literally means spits. Six of them could be held in one hand, and that handful gave the drachma its name. When silver coinage appeared, the small coin worth one rod kept the title obol, so a word for a cooking skewer ended up naming the sixth part of a drachma.

On the Attic standard an obol weighed about 0.72 grams, and the figure used here, 0.7277 g, is simply the drachma figure divided by six. Surviving coins vary, and the Aeginetic obol was heavier, near 1.05 grams. Each obol was in turn split into four tetartemoria of about 0.18 grams. The obol was the small change of Athens: jurors were paid in fractions of a drachma, and its weight is comparable to a single paperclip or a small grain of rice, about a fortieth of an ounce.

1 obol = 0.0007276666667 kilograms (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Ancient drachma; Wikipedia: Ancient Greek units of measurement

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

Related conversions

See all weight & mass units.