Grivna
Grivna was a currency as well as a measure of weight used in Kievan Rus' and other East Slavic countries since the 11th century.
The word grivna is derived from Proto-Slavic *grivĭna 'necklace' from Proto-Slavic *griva 'neck, nape, mane'. In Old East Slavic it had the form гривьна grivĭna. In modern East Slavic languages it has such forms: Russian: гри́вна grivna, Ukrainian: гри́вня hryvnia, Belarusian: гры́ўня hryŭnia.
The name of the contemporary currency of Ukraine, hryvnia, is derived from the ancient grivna.
As its etymology implies the word originally meant a necklace or a torque, however the reason why it has taken the meaning of a unit of weight is unclear. The grivnas that have been found at various archaeological sites are not necklaces but bullions of precious metals, usually silver. The weight and the shape of grivnas were not uniform, but varied by region. The grivnas of Novgorod and Pskov were thin long round-edged or three-edged ingots, while Kievan grivnas has rather the shape of a prolonged rhombus. The material was either gold or silver, but silver was predominant. Originally the weight of a grivna was close to the Roman or Byzantine pound. The weight of the Kievan grivna was around 140–165 grams (0.309–0.364 lb). The Novgorod grivna had the weight 204 grams (0.450 lb) and became the basis for monetary systems of North-Eastern Russian principalities and the emerging Russian state.
Along the "grivna of silver" there were the account "grivna of kuna". The latter originally signified a certain amount of marten furs (kuna is the word for marten). Since the 12th century the "grivna of kuna" became another unit of weight, but smaller, and signified as well a certain amount of silver coins: 2.5-gram nogata (from Arabic: نقد naqd 'money; a coin') and rezan ( 1⁄2 dirham).
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