Batman (unit)

The man as a unit of weight is thought to be of at least Chaldean origin, The Hebrew () and the Ancient Greek () are thought to be cognate. It was originally equal to one-ninth of the weight of an artaba of water, or approximately four kilograms in modern units. İnalcık believes the ancient Persian patimāna may have come from the late Assyrian word for 'mana of the king'. The man or batman spread throughout Arabia and Persia: it was adopted by the Ottoman Empire, and brought to India by the Mughal Empire. The first attestation which gives a comparison to European weights was by Pegolotti in his Pratica della mercatura, written about 1340. He reported the batman as the main unit of mass in Ayasluğ ("Altoluogo di Turchia" to Pegolotti; modern Selçuk, in western Turkey), equivalent to 32 Genoese pounds (). ==Ottoman Empire==

The batman (or bateman) was first recorded in English in 1599, in Babylon (probably modern Baghdad), where it was said to be equal to "7 pound and 5 ounces English weight". 1821 in Baghdad and in 1850 in Constantinople. Turkey The Turkish system of weights and measures was metricated in 1931. The oka was redefined as exactly one kilogram, while the batman became ten okas (10 kg). ==Central Asia==

The batman was used in Central Asia up until at least the 18th century. In Khiva in 1740, there were said to be two batmans (as in Persia): the "great batman" of 18 Russian pounds (, funt; approx. 7.4 kg) and the "lesser batman" of 9¼ Russian pounds (approx. 3.8 kg). In Uyghur, the batman was also a measure of land area, the area that could be sown with one batman (in mass) of seed. ==Idel-Ural==

The Tatar batman is an equivalent to 4 pood or 65.5 kg. ==Persia==

The two main commercial weights in Persia were the tabrézy man ( من تبریز ), literally the man of Tabriz, and the sháhy man ( من شاء ), literally the Shah's man, which was twice as large. The man was divided into mithqals (the number depending on the locality): larger subdivisions included the abbassi and the ratl. ==Notes==