hi jens,
actually, i wasnt pulling your leg (for change), but i suppose i was diverting away from your original question.
my point was not to do with the weight (which varies of course), as such, but was in response to ricks mention of one-sided wootz. hence, the mentioning of tavernier's 'halves'.
by quoting my translation and yours, i tried to make a further point (completely unrelated) about trusting translations of early texts.
this, no matter how important i feel it is, has nothing to do with round ingots
my apologies.