Per minas

Per minas is a Latin term that means "through mines". In the olden days, people used to extract valuable minerals like gold and silver through mining. Per minas refers to how these minerals were extracted and weighed.

So, imagine you have a big rock with gold inside it. To get the gold out, you need to dig a hole in the ground (a mine) and go underneath the rock. Then you use tools to break the rock apart and scoop up the gold particles.

Once you have a bunch of gold, you need to weigh it to find out how much it's worth. But because gold is very dense and heavy, you can't just use a regular scale. Instead, you need to use something called a balance.

A balance has two sides, and each side has a little dish. You put your gold in one dish and weights in the other dish until the two sides are even. The weight of the gold is then measured in minas, which is a unit of weight used in ancient Rome.

So, per minas means "through mines" because the gold was extracted through mining and then weighed in minas. It was a way to figure out the worth of the gold that was being extracted, which was very important to people back then.