MINA (Hebr. mâneh; Gr. μνᾶ; Lat. mina or mna). - Unit of weight, used in the biblical age for gold (I Reg. 10, 17) and silver (Estd. 2, 69; Neh. 7, 71), and based on the Babylonian weight system, in which the m. (manū “to count”) was 502.2 g. and corresponded to 1/60 of a talent (30.13 kg.), divided into 60 shekels (8.37 g.). The heavy m. was double this. Among the Hebrews the talent likewise amounted to 60 m., but only 3,000 shekels (instead of 3,600, cf. Ex. 38, 25-27), thus reducing the m. to 50 shekels, as in Syria and at Rās Samrah.
In some legislative texts the trace of the ancient m. of 60 shekels has been preserved (Ex. 21, 32), whereas in the Deuteronomic texts the current use of the m. of 50 shekels seems to be recognizable. Ex. 45, 12 appears to seek, by a somewhat strange calculation, to restore the m. in current use, of 50 shekels, to its original value of 60 for the use of the Sanctuary. Stone and lead weights, with or without inscriptions, found during excavations, do not permit any approximation, since they were of local use and differ according to period.
In the Hellenistic period, the Attic talent used in Palestine (I Mach. 11, 18) appears to have been divided into 60 m. or 6,000 drachmas (ibid. 14, 24; 15, 18; Lc. 19, 13-25), and thus the m. had a value of 100 drachmas. Flavio Giuseppe (Autiq. Iud., 14, 7, 1) writes that the talent, weighing 43 kg., was divided into 50 m., each worth approximately two and a half Roman pounds.