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The ancient Egyptian royal cubit (meh niswt) is the earliest attested standard measure.Cubit rods were used for the measurement of length.A number of these rods have survived: two are known from the tomb of Maya, the treasurer of the 18th dynasty pharaoh Tutankhamun, in Saqqara; another was found in the tomb of Kha in Thebes.
During the Ptolemaic period, the cubit strip square was surveyed using a length of 96 cubits rather than 100, although the aroura was still figured to compose 2,756.25 m 2. [17] A 36 square cubit area was known as a kalamos and a 144 square cubit area as a hamma. [17]
Those that were larger, in increasing order of size, included the modius (מודיא), [39] geriwa (geriwa), garab (גרב). Of unidentified size were the ardaba (אדרב), the kuna (כונא), and the qometz (קמץ); the latter two of these were said to equate to a handful. Some dry measures were used for liquids as well, e.g. se'eh.
The Egyptian cubit, the Indus Valley units of length referred to above, and the Mesopotamian cubit were used in the 3rd millennium BC and are the earliest known units used by ancient peoples to measure length. The units of length used in ancient India included the dhanus, or dhanush (bow), the krosa (cry, or cow-call) and the yojana (stage ...
One cubit is originally the length from someone's elbow to the tip of their middle finger; it usually translates to approximately half a metre ±10%, with an ancient Roman cubit being as long as 120 cm. One cubit was equal to 6–7 palms, one palm being the width of a hand not including the thumb.
In Ancient Egypt it was the basic unit of subdivision of the cubit. [1] On surviving Ancient Egyptian cubit-rods, the royal cubit is divided into seven palms of four digits or fingers each. [3] The royal cubit measured approximately 525 mm, [4] so the length of the ancient Egyptian digit was about 19 mm.
In the Middle Ages, bars were used as standards of length when surveying land. [22] These bars often used a unit of measure called a rod, of length equal to 5.5 yards, 5.0292 metres, 16.5 feet, or 1 ⁄ 320 of a statute mile. [23] A rod is the same length as a perch or a pole. [24] In Old English, the term lug is also used.
Egyptian units of length are attested from the Early Dynastic Period. Although it dates to the 5th dynasty, the Palermo stone recorded the level of the Nile River during the reign of the Early Dynastic pharaoh Djer , when the height of the Nile was recorded as 6 cubits and 1 palm (about 3.217 m or 10 ft 6.7 in). [ 2 ]