It is important to note here that the Book of Mormon made no specific mention of coins here, nor did it make any specific mention of weight; it referred to “pieces,” which could certainly be interpreted as volumetric measurement, especially considering that the raw gold and silver in this era in Mesoamerica were native old and silver, the gold probably being primarily from placer-type deposits that generate small pieces or flakes of gold. Based on the four measurements from the two systems that are correlated (senine/senum and antion/three shiblons) a comparable system of both weight and volume is not possible, since the density of gold is 19.3g/cm[^]3 and the density of silver is close to half of that at 10.5gcm[^3]. The system must be either weight based or volumetric based. Since different types of grain also vary in density, and a senine/senum is equal to a measure of barley and for a “measure of every other kind of grain” (Alma 11:7) a volumetric based system is the most practical as the measure of each grain appears to be equivalent based on that language, and grains have some variation in density as well. Many of those who have previously analyzed this section of the Book of Mormon have jumped to the erroneous conclusion that the marketplaces of the Nephites must have been full of scales, brimming with gold and silver, with all of the people pulling gold and silver out of their pockets when, in fact, the very opposite language is contained here (Alma 11:4-5).

4 Now these are the names of the different pieces of their gold, and of their silver, according to their value. And the names are given by the Nephites, for they did not reckon after the manner of the Jews who were at Jerusalem; neither did they measure after the manner f the Jews; but they altered their reckoning and their measure, according to the minds and the circumstances of the people, in every generation, until the reign of the judges, they having been established by king Mosiah.

5 Now the reckoning is thus—a senine of gold, a seon of gold, a shum of gold, and a limnah of gold.

It is clear that there is no measurement being made for the gold or silver, just the “reckoning” of their value; the only measurement relates to the grain, which is a known standard of exchange for trade in Mesoamerica. There certainly may have been exchange of gold and silver going on when available in some of the marketplaces, but it would be no different than any other commodity sold there. Mormon has warned anyone bothering to read this section that the Nephites did not reckon or measure after the manner of the Jews.

One question that sometimes arises with regards to this grain-standardized barter system is the use of the term money found in the Book of Mormon (Alma 11:20). However, in a historical context, the utilization of this term is appropriate.

With growth in communication, and the increasing importance of trade, barter became increasingly inconvient, depending as it does on the whims of individuals or on interminable negotiations.

The need grew, therefore, for a stable system of equivalence of value. This would be defined (much as numbers are expressed in terms of a base_ in terms of certain fixed units or standards of exchange. In pre-Hellenic Greece, the earliest unit of exchange that we find is an ox. According to Homer’s Iliad, … a “woman of good for a thousand tasks” was worth four oxen, the bronze armour of Glaucos was worth nine, and that of Diomedes (in gold) was worth 100. …. The Latin word pecunia (money), from which we get “pecuniary,” comes from pecus, meaning “cattle”; … The Latin capita (“head”) has given us “capital.” In Hebrew, keseph means both “sheep” and “money”; and the root-word made of the letters GML standing for both “camel” and “wages.” (Ifra 2000, 72)

As of yet, there is no Mesoamerican archaeological evidence of any sort of scale measurements using gold or silver (or any other weights for that matter). Even in Israel, most modern persons have the misconception that shekels there are some sort of money or coinage, when, in fact, it is just a weight system, and the units of weights used in exchange were made of limestone. Raz Kletter (1999, 93-94) notes:

During the Iron Age period [1200-550 BC], coins were not yet known in Judah, and there was no monetary economy in its modern sense. There was no word for “money.” . . . Weight defined the value (i.e., the price) of expensive commodities, mainly gold and silver (most other commodities were measured by volume). . . . The Old Testament mentions the weighing of different metals, usually gold and silver, rarely copper (1 Kgs 7:47; 2 Kgs 25;16; 1 Chron. 22:13-16). Most of these references concern transactions, taxes and booty at national and international levels, and not trade between individuals. It is not clear to that extent such transactions involved real weighing, even when the Old Testament expresses “price” in weight units. Local trade and day-to-day transactions in small communities were most probably made by exchange (barter), which did not necessitate formal weighing and actual exchange of precious metals.