Convert Bekan (Biblical Hebrew) (bekan) to Ton (Assay) (US) (AT (US)) instantly.
About these units
Bekan (Biblical Hebrew) (bekan)
The bekan (or beka) is a half-shekel unit, approximately 5.6 grams. It appears in the Hebrew Bible as the required contribution for the census tax, symbolizing equality among contributors regardless of wealth. As a practical unit, the beka was useful for small-scale offerings, jewelry, and silverwork. Its precise half-shekel value made it easy to incorporate into the larger Hebrew weight structure. The bekan highlights how weights were intertwined with religious observance and communal obligations in ancient Israelite society.
Ton (Assay) (US) (AT (US))
The US assay ton is a specialized unit used in mining and metallurgy for evaluating ore grades. It is defined as 29.166⅔ grams, a very small mass chosen to simplify calculations relating assay results to tons of ore. The idea is that if an assay ton of sample yields 1 milligram of precious metal, then one actual ton of ore contains 1 ounce of that metal. This scaling makes laboratory results directly translatable to mining yields. While obsolete in modern industrial practice, where metric units dominate, the assay ton remains important in historical mining records and for researchers studying early industrial metallurgy.