nilkassa

nilkassa (plural nilkassae) is a historical unit of volume originally used in the Nilku region of the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean to measure grain and liquid commodities. The term derives from the Nilku word nil meaning “grain” and the Akkadian suffix kassa indicating a container or vessel, together implying “grain vessel.” Archaeological records from the 3rd millennium BCE show damaged clay tablets that define the nilkassa as equivalent to approximately 3.2 liters, although some sources suggest a range of 3.0 to 3.5 liters due to regional variation. The unit appears in trade inscriptions and tax documents, reflecting its role in standardized transactions between city-states and itinerant merchants. In later Hellenistic accounts, the nilkassa is referenced as a precursor to the Greek oikophorion, a similar measure of grain. Although the unit fell out of common use after the Roman annexation of the Nilku territories, it survived in funerary and ritual contexts; tomb inscriptions occasionally note offerings measured in nilkassae. Modern scholars reconstruct its volume by cross-referencing contemporary measurements and calibrating with surviving Greek numismatic standards. While it is no longer used in everyday commerce, the nilkassa remains of interest to archaeologists and historians of commerce and is occasionally cited in academic works on pre-Hellenistic economic systems.