Cotta (unit)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cotta was an East Indian square measure and it was used around Calcutta in Bengal .

As Cotta or Codda , it was also a counting measure in the Maldives and on various African coasts. It served here as a substitute for money bills. A cotta had 12,000 kauri or small tiger snails (Cypraea tigris) as the amount of the barter object. The Kauri snail corresponded to the cutting coin in the retail trade and was worth around 14 silver groschen.

The area measure had these values:

  • 1 Cotta = 18 ⅞ square fathoms (Viennese) = 23.51 square fathoms (Saxony)
  • 20 cotta = 1 bigga
  • 16 cotta = 1 chattaks

literature

  • Johann Friedrich Krüger: Complete manual of the coins, measures and weights of all countries in the world. Verlag Gottfried Basse, Quedlinburg / Leipzig 1830, p. 50
  • Smaller Brockhaus'sches conversation lexicon for manual use. Volume 2, FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1854, p. 118