Talk:Historical weights and measures/Archive 3

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Irrational Ratio

"The Egyptian System" says:

Note also the cubit and remen which has a ratio that constitutes an irrational number.

This sentence is ungrammatical and difficult to decipher. If it is supposed to say

Note also that the ration of the cubit to the remen is an irrational number

the statement is nonsense, since an irrational number is one that canNOT be expressed as a ratio.

I hesitate to just delete it, since there seem to be very serious editors of this topic. Perhaps they can clarify what the sentence means. --Craigbutz 01:13, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

One way to deal with irrational numbers is to use unit measures that are related irrationally. Not precisely as modern mathematics would demand, but to close approximations which are more than sufficient for all practical measurement.

Setting one measure equal to the circumference of a circle and another to its diameter 22:7

An Egyptian architect from the 3rd millenium BC left a sketch which shows how a series of different heights at a unit spacing can be used to define an arc. The heights are given in fractions of royal cubits and therefore its logical to assume the spacing is in royal cubits also, but Egyptian mathematics can be subtle. If the spacing is set as units of an ordinary cubit of 6 palms instead of 7, the arc described is best described as circular.

or the 3:4:5 proportions of a right triangle, where the hypotensuse is a remen of 5 palms and the run a quarter of three palms, the rise is a foot of four palms.

Another way to do this is to relate a length to a volume as its side.

An irrational number is one that can't be expressed as a ratio of two integers. The statement is still nonsense, but just because all ancient measurements are approximate (as opposed to modern, highly technical definitions involving cesium atoms and whatnot), and therefore any ratio between them must be approximate, and therefore the ratio can't be expressed with an infinite degree of specificity, which is what an irrational ratio would require.

In any case, there's no way anyone's actually proven anything like this irrational. Only a handful of things have been proven irrational: certain radicals, π, e, maybe φ. I say remove the statement—it's completely ludicrous. —Simetrical (talk) 05:26, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

These relationships are often rational when they are matters of definition, not otherwise. There is now a rational relationship between a pound and a kilogram, something that wasn't true 150 years ago. But, for example, the ratio between circular mils and square mils is a matter of definition, but not rational.
The ratio of the diagonal of a square to its side is the square root of 2. Not a rational number. So the statement is correct. Gene Nygaard 05:58, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
I think User:24.5.64.20 did a nice job of rewording this idea. Gene Nygaard 19:53, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Iranian nationalism?

The section on Persian units claims a pre-existing Persian stadion and skhoinos. Both words are Greek, from Greek roots. Stadia are Greek units, found in Greece; schoinoi are Egyptian units, known to us by a Greek word meaning "rush" or "reed". Since the Egyptian symbols for thousands and ten-thousands can both he so described, and the schoenus is several thousand cubits, there's no reason to suppose the "Persian" units ever existed. Septentrionalis 20:56, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Rktect 8/1/05: Some of the best evidence for pre-existing Persian Units is
Their doubling Egyptian units just as described by Herodotus
The Persian increments of Guz of Gudge are found in places
that weren't reached by the Greeks until the time of Alexander
but that were included in the Persian Empire
These units don't match Greek units but do closely double Egyptian units
Consequently rather than a wide range of different values without any discernable system
you have a great or royal, long, median and short form of the guz
equivalent to the double of Egyptian units making the Persian parasang
actually equal the schoenus because it has half as many units that are twice as long
Persakh, or Para- Persia. 6000 gudge of 42" = 21,000 feet
unit name "bd" "rmn" ? "mh" ? "rc" "nibw"
Egyptian half 11.81" 14.5" ? 17.7" ? 20.62" 23.62
Ideal Double 23.62 29" ? 35.4" ? 41.24" 47.24
Persian Region dbl foot Guz dbl remen Gueza dbl cubit Zer dbl Gudge
India
Bengal ? ? ? 36" ? ? ?
Bombay ? 27" ? ? ? ? ?
Madras ? ? 33" ? ? ? ?
Persia 25 ? ? 36.4" ? 40.95" 44"
Arabia 24" ? ? 37" ? ? (Bassorah)


Herodotus Book 2
Chapter 6
1 Further, the length of the seacoast of Egypt itself is sixty "schoeni" -- of Egypt,
that is, as we judge it to be, reaching from the Plinthinete gulf to the Serbonian marsh,
which is under the Casian mountain -- between these there is this length of sixty schoeni.
2 Men that have scant land measure by feet; those that have more, by miles;
those that have much land, by parasangs; and those who have great abundance of it, by schoeni.
3 The parasang is three and three quarters miles, and
the schoenus, which is an Egyptian measure, is twice that.
In other words there are 10 Egyptian scoenus (or itrw of 21,000 royal cubits) to a degree
and there are 20 Persian Parasangs of 3.75 miles or 75 Persian miles.
Chapter 7
1 By this reckoning, then,
the seaboard of Egypt will be four hundred and fifty miles in length.
Inland from the sea as far as Heliopolis, Egypt is a wide land, all flat and watery and marshy.
From the sea up to Heliopolis is a journey
about as long as the way from the altar of the twelve gods at Athens
to the temple of Olympian Zeus at Pisa.
2 If a reckoning is made, only a little difference of length,
not more than two miles, will be found between these two journeys
for the journey from Athens to Pisa is two miles short of two hundred
which is the number of miles between the sea and Heliopolis.
Chapter 9
1 From Heliopolis to Thebes is nine days' journey by river, and
the distance is six hundred and eight miles, or eighty-one schoeni.
2 This, then, is a full statement of all the distances in Egypt
the seaboard is four hundred and fifty miles long; and
I will now declare the distance inland from the sea to Thebes
it is seven hundred and sixty-five miles. And
between Thebes and the city called Elephantine there are two hundred and twenty-five miles.
In other words the two cities are three degrees apart.
Chapter 109
1 For this reason Egypt was intersected.
This king also (they said) divided the country among all the Egyptians
by giving each an equal parcel of land, and made this his source of revenue,
assessing the payment of a yearly tax.
2 And any man who was robbed by the river of part of his land
could come to Sesostris and declare what had happened
then the king would send men to look into it and calculate the part
by which the land was diminished, so that thereafter
it should pay in proportion to the tax originally imposed.
3 From this, in my opinion, the Greeks learned the art of measuring land
the sunclock and the sundial, and the twelve divisions of the day
came to Hellas from Babylonia and not from Egypt.
Chapter 168
1 The warriors were the only Egyptians, except the priests, who had special privileges
for each of them an untaxed plot of twelve acres was set apart.
This acre is a square of a hundred Egyptian cubits each way,
the Egyptian cubit being equal to the Samian.
12 Egyptian acres of side 100 of the cubit = to the Samian, the mh t3 or land cubit
would be equivalent to 6 English acres

Version of IP 69.164.70.243

This article became worse since 2005, February 7th. Now it is really bad ! The low point is attained. --Paul Martin 5 July 2005 12:35 (UTC)

I agree—well, I have not checked whether the 2005-02-07 version was the best one and whether there have been useful edits as well since. Anyhow, I do not care enough about it to be doing more than adding the templates at the top. Christoph Päper 5 July 2005 14:59 (UTC)
Surely there should be some justified changes since then. But at present, this article is higgledy-piggledy. For the rest, I'am always waiting for Egil's reply to my intervention of Feb. 28th below, concerning: "Great Pyramid of Giza was built to a precision of 0.015 m over sides that are 235 meters." etc.
--Paul Martin 5 July 2005 16:37 (UTC)

The Same System

The same system of weights and measures has continued throughout history, despite a number of different civilisations making their own adjustments to serve their own purposes.
Goes the article ... the same system? I very much doubt it. Jimp 15Jul05
Wikipedia could use an exposition of Gilling's, Piazzi Smyth's, system etc of unifying all measures, ancient and modern, but to present them as consensus is bosh.
Its a little strange to lump Gillings in with Piazzi Smyth
I will support all efforts to state the apparent values of ancient measures, and then a separate section for the pseudoscience. Septentrionalis 22:06, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
I would have much less problems with this anonymous additions, which at least all come from the same IP User:69.164.70.243 (lndnnh.adelpia.net), if they used correct Wiki mark-up (esp. definition lists) and good wording, but they look just like randomly copied text from some other source
They may indeed look like something randomly copied.
Most of my writing starts with a lot of reading

then jotting down notes, some field measures to verify, some spreadsheets to analyse and then more reading.

After a couple of decades of running the numbers

I tend to see a lot of things that I sort of agree with but might phrase a little differently so there aren't many sources I can cite without commentary.

(Gillings maybe, not findable on Google).
Try Googling

Richard J. Gillings, Mathematics in the Times of the Pharoahs. (1972; rpt. New York: Dover, 1982)


I meant that I did not find your formulations, which otherwise would have been an indication for copy-and-pasting. Christoph Päper 15:28, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Can you clarify what you are looking for
in the way of "formulations"?
At the moment I'm just listing standards of measure
I therefore now cleaned the article by moving much of that bad styled content here. I'm using my last edit, because I don't want to clean up the newly messed-up paragraphs. Christoph Päper 02:45, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm a little new to Wiki mark-up but willing to clean it up
Okay, show me! Everytime you edit there is a link to “Editing help” below the edit window. Read that! (Or Wikipedia:Lists.) So far all your edits have made the article less readable.
I will consider that an attempt at constructive criticism
allow it is valid and attempt to comply
Not much of your knowledge comes across, much is unclear, seems contradictory (often by ambiguity), is repititive, speculation or just irrelevant for an encyclopedia or this particular article. Christoph Päper 15:28, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
You can speak the truth and say nothing, or tolerate some ambiguity

and discuss what is repetitive, what is speculative, what is irrelevant for the discussion page.

Listing measures seems pretty straightforward
I can see where someone who doesn't have familiarity with a measure
would want to be pointed toward the source material with a cite, but
If your standard of proper grammar is what I see above
maybe we should look for a new standard.

Units

Units were often defined to a high degree of accuracy
by tying the units of length and area to units of volume.
This example, uses English measures as a base and
Egyptian and Roman measures as units of comparison:
English inch := 25.4 mm
English finger := 20.32 mm
That would be 4/5", I've only seen 3/4" or 7/8"
given for English digit/finger(-breadth) so far.
1/16th of a foot (¾") would be consequent, not 1/15th.
Break out your Stanley Tape measure and look for the diamond at 19.2"
It comes right after the arrow at 16" which is used by carpenters
to frame studs so that a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood
will land on the studs.
19.2 " divides eight feet into five parts instead of 6
An English cubit of 19.2" has 6 palms and 24 fingers of 20.32 mm or .8"
Egyptian finger (dj) :≈ 18.75 mm
Egyptian palm (ssp) := 4 dj ≈ 75 mm
Egyptian hand (spd) := 5 dj ≈ 93.75 mm
1 cubic foot (12″): = 1 ft³
1 cubic remen (15.12 "):≈ 2 ft³
(an Egyptian measure of ≈14.5" adopted by Romans as ≈15" )
1 cubic short cubit (17.307"):≈ 3 ft³
1 cubic ordinary cubit (17.575"):≈ π ft³
1 cubic English cubit (19.2″) :≈ 4 ft³
1 cubic royal cubit (20.52") :≈ 5 ft³
1 cubic cubit (6 spd = 21.8″) :≈ 6 ft³
6 spd/cubit × 5 dj/spd × 18.75 mm/dj / 25.4 mm/in ≈ 22.15 in/cubit
1 cubic cubit (31 dj = 22.96″) :≈ 7 ft³
24″ × 24″ × 24″ := 8 ft³
1 cubic meter : = 7 royal cubits³
360 Mesopotamian ku (500 mm) :≈ 180 m
350 Egyptian royal cubits := 1 minute of march ≈ 183.3 m
1 stadion := 600 Attic pous (308.3 mm) ≈ 185 m =
1 stadium := 625 Ionian pous = 625 Roman pes (296 mm) ≈ 185 m
10 stadia :≈ 1 nautical mile
I respectfully disagree with this comment by my editor
"1 English furlong : ca. 200 m - This Anglo-Saxon unit hasn't changed in length (significiantly) for centuries. It was said to be 1/8th of a (Roman) mile since that was reintroduced in Britain, but in fact it is only exactly 1/8th of the English statute mile of 1593 (QE1). 5280 milliari = 5000 statute miles (132:125).
Rktect 7/30/05
I looked at some of the "Anglo-Saxon" European units
from Romania, Norway, Norman France, Germany, Denmark,
Finland, Spain, Scotland, Finland, France, and England
All of them are transparent multiples of Greek and Roman units.
I found a couple of similar statements on websites
Generally I would characterise such statements as uniformed
Especially since you can as readilly find the correct information
with the same web search
The following is from a web page which cites Klein
"The "ell" is an ancient measure of length,...
mentioned explicitly in the Magna Charta,...
reluctantly signed by King John on 15 June 1215.
This document contains sixty-three pledges or clauses;
the thirty-fifth is the "measurements" pledge.
Translated from the medieval Latin into modern English,
this clause reads: "Throughout the Kingdom
there shall be standard measures of wine, ale, and corn.
Also there shall be a standard width of dyed cloth, russet,
and haberject; namely a width of two ells within the selvedges.
Weights also are to be standardized similarly."
One of the earliest of all tables of English linear mesures,
Richard Arnold's Customs of London, c. 1503,
contains the following sequence ...
The length of a barley corn 3 times make an ynche [inch] and
12 ynches make a fote [foot] and
3 fote make a yerde [yard] and
5 qaters [quarters] of the yerde make an elle.
5 fote make a pace.
123[125 in Klein] pace make a furlong
and 8 furlong make an English myle [mile]
Sources:
The World of Measurements, by H. Arthur Klein,
736 pages, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1974, SBN 671215655
http://www.littletechshoppe.com/ns1625/nshist03.html
600 Roman/Greek stadia 111 km, 60 nautical miles
or 75 Roman miles (milliare))
The comment was added " one degree of Earth" which is meaningless
Its one degree of the earth's equatorial circumference.
The discussion of such calculations can be found in Ptolomy's geography
The following question seems a bit naive.
My metrology knowledge in fact is better after mediæval times than before or even inside, but what reason would QE1 have had to increase the number of feet or yards in (and the length of) a mile, if not making eight existing furlongs its new size?
Every time a standard of measure is changed, somebody benefits economically. Someone's acres get larger and they own more land and can charge more in rent or tithes or taxes. Queen Elizabeth clearly had advisors who stood to gain if they suceeded in changing the standards of measure. When they sold her that bill of goods they set the stage for Napoleon and the metric system.
The mile has always been divided in 8 stadions, stadiums and furlongs
The Romans also divided the stadium into 5 actus of 125 pes
When the Milos was 4800 pous the stadion was 600 pous and 185 m
In a square Milos there were 64 square stadions and 576 aroura
The Bodelian manuscript dates from this period
14 acres maketh a yerde of land
5 yerdis maketh a hyde of land which is 70 acres
8 hydis maketh a knights fee which is 560 acres of land
Look at the confusion
the redefinition of the Greek Milos by the Romans and
The redefinition of the Milliare by the Elizabeathans, and
The redefinition of the Mile by the Metric system brings to Europe.
Virgate - An old English unit of area,
equal to one quarter of a hide = 1.25 yerdis = 17.5 acres
The amount of land needed to support a person.
The hide is at its root a German word for household.
In the Saxon counties of southern England,
it referred to the land sufficient to support one family,
  • which equaled what the family plowed in a year.
  • Depending on the fertility of the land, the hide varied
  • from as little as 60 to as many as 240 acres,
  • but it was typically between 80 and 120.
  • The bovate, 1/8 of a carucate, also appears in the Domesday Book.
  • Its origin is Danish and it is found
  • in the northeastern English counties constituting the Danelaw.
  • A carucata or carucate, like a hide, is approximately 120 acres and
  • like the bovate was found in the Danish counties.
  • Plowland or plowgate is equal to a carucate or
  • an area eight oxen can plow
  • sufficient for a free family to support itself;
  • its origins precede 1100.
  • The plowland compares with the knight’s fee, which was a larger area
  • sufficient to support a knight’s family
  • (perhaps to allow pasture for animal husbandry).
  • Sulung is a Kentish term for two hides.
  • A yoke in Kent is 1/4 of a sulung.
  • A virgate is a rod in linear measure and 1/4 of a hide
  • (or 30 acres) as a measure of area in Saxon counties.


  • Arpent - Unit of length and area used in France, Louisiana, and Canada. * As a unit of length, =~ 191.8 feet (180 old French 'pied', or foot).
  • The (square) arpent is a unit of area,
  • approximately .845 acres, or 36,802 square feet
  • Morgen - Unit of area =~ .6309 acres. or 27, 482 SF
  • It was used in Germany, Holland and South Africa,
  • and was derived from the German word Morgen ("morning").
  • It represented the amount of land that could be plowed in a morning.


  • 560 acres =~ 576 aroura
  • The square Milos has become the Knights fee
  • in a square stadion there were 9 aroura of 40,000 square pous
  • each aroura had a side of 200 pous divisible into 2 plethrons
  • each of the 2304 plethron in a square Milos had a side of 100 pous
  • When the Milliare was 5000 pes the stadium was 625 pes and 185 m
  • In a square Milliare there were still 64 square stadiums but
  • There were also 25 square actus of 25 acres
  • A Heridia was 1.25 acres so there were 20 Heridis to a square Actus
  • Each Jugerum was half a Heridium and Half a Jugerum was an acuna.
  • A Centuria was 100 Heredia or 125 acres or 5 square Actus
  • in a square acre there were 40,000 square pes or pedes
  • each acre had a side of 200 pes
  • When the Myle was 5000 fote the furlong was 625 fote and 185 m
  • Each square furlong was divided into 25 square actus
  • A Heridia was 1.25 acres so there were 20 Heridis to a square Actus
  • Each Jugerum was half a Heridium and Half a Jugerum was an acuna.
  • A Centuria was 100 Heredia or 125 acres or 5 square Actus
  • in a square acre there were 40,000 square feet or fote
  • each acre had a side of 200 feet
  • When the Mile was made 5280 feet the furlong became 220 yards
  • Each square furlong was divided into 10 acres or 8 Heridia
  • each acre measured a perch by a furlong
  • Each square furlong was half a square Actus
  • Each Jugerum was half a Heridium and Half a Jugerum was an acuna.
  • Each Furlong was 16 Jugerum and 32 acuna
  • A Centuria was 100 Heredia, 12.5 square furlongs
  • 125 acres or 5 square Actus was one
  • in a square acre there were 40,000 square feet or fote
  • each acre had a side of 200 feet
  • The Romans conquered (much of) Britain,
  • when it was inhabited by Celts, bringing with them their mile.
  • The Germanic Anglo-Saxons, who were hardly Roman or Greek influenced,
  • How much influence do you think the Greeks had
  • on the people who lived on the Danube
  • arrived later with their furlong and eventually were defeated
  • by the Normans, of Nordic origin but quite “frenchised”.
  • Where is it that you think the furlong originated?
Like the peoples their systems of measurement merged. See also further down. Christoph Päper 15:28, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
  • This comment seems uniformed
  • "This implies that Greeks and Romans, maybe even earlier civilizations, realised that Earth is a sphere"
  • This appears to be cognative dissonance
  • ...calculated its circumference to a pretty high precision and then decided to use that as a base for their measurements.
I just say that it implies that, not that I exclude the possibility. Of course there were people who not believed in Earth as a disc a long time ago, some even calculated its circumference to quite some precision—I'm bad with remembering names, sorry—, but it's a huge step from there to have a system of measurement based on that. Also consider that there is not just one Greek stadium. Christoph Päper 15:28, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
  • This can be cited to Herodotus and Ptolomy.
  • "The 1 "minute of march" seems much more plausible,
  • This appears to be cognative dissonance
  • the rest being coincidence.

Egyptian volume

  • See Gillings’ “Mathematics in the time of the Egyptians” is a good benchmark for discussions of Egyptian mathematics and their systematic calculations of length, area and volume.
  • hekat, hk3t := 1/30 Royal cubit³, 4.8 l, used for grain, was divided into fractions of ½, ¼, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 and 1/64 by an "Eye of Horus" rule.
  • Gillings says the hk3t was 1/30 royal cubit. If we take the royal cubit as 5 cubic feet that would mean that 6 hk3t = 1728 in³ and the hk3t is 288 in³ (4.72 l). Gillings says, Chace gives it as 292.24 in³ (4.79 l).
  • Since the divisions of the hk3t are clearly a doubling system similar to the English systems and since ancient weights and measures often have long, median and short forms, it might be interesting to see what would happen if the divisions of the cubic cubit would follow the same system.
  • For purposes of accuracy allow a Bronze Age variation in the length of the cubit, 20.62" ± 1/16" or 523.75 mm ± 1.6 mm.
  • Comment by my editor
  • above it is only said to be <= 525 mm
  • The variance in actual cubit rules is +/- 1/16" at a minimum
  • If we set the hk3t at 1/32 of a royal cubit with side 20.7" and volume 8876 in³ and divide by 32 we get 277.36 in³.
  • For comparison purposes:
  • 1 ounce := 1.44375 in³, i.e. side 1.13"
  • 1 gill := 5 ounces = 7.21875 in³, i.e. sides 1.93"
  • 1 pint := 4 gills = 28.875 in³, i.e. sides 3.06" = 1 palm
  • 1 quart := 2 pints = 57.75 in³, i.e. sides 3.86"
  • 1 (US/wine) gallon := 231 in³ = 4 quarts,
  • i.e. side 6.14" = 2 palms = 1/38 royal cubit, 1/24 ordinary cubit
  • 1 imperial gallon := 277.42 in³
  • 1 peck := 2 wine gallons = 462 in³, i.e. sides 7.73" or
  • volume 1/12 ordinary cubit and 1/19 royal cubit of side 20.62
  • 1 kenning := 2 pecks = 924 in³, i.e. sides 9.74 in = 1/6 ordinary cubit
  • 1 bushel := 8 gallons = 4 pecks = 2 kennings = 1/3 ordinary cubit
  • Volume = 1848 in³ = sides of 12.27" = 312 mm
  • 6.4 hk3ts of 288 in³ but 6 2/3 hk3ts of 277.36 in³
  • 1 firkin := 9 gallons, 2079 in³, side 12.76 in, 7.5 hk3ts of 277.36 in³
  • 1 kilderkin := 18 gallons = 4158 in³ = side 16 in, 15 hk3ts of 277.36 in³
  • 1 wine barrel := 36 gallons = 8316 in³ (height 34 7/8",
  • area 238.45 in², diameter 1 Roman cubit ≈ 30 hk3ts of 277.36 in³)
  • 1 beer barrel := 38 gallons = 8778 in³ (height 34 7/8",
  • area 252 in², diameter 1 biblical cubit ≈ 32 hk3ts of 277.36 in³)
  • 1 beer hogshead := 54 gallons = 12474 in³ ≈ 45 h3kts of 277.36 in³
Dimensions of real barrels from a winery
Capacity Stave thickness Head diameter Head circumference Belly diameter Belly circumference Height Bung hole diameter
53 gallon 0.937" 21.25" 66.8" 25.7" 80 5/8" 34 7/8" 2"
59 gallon 0.987" 22.687" 71.27" 27.53" 87" 34 7/8" 2"
65 gallon 0.937" 22.687" 71.27" 28" 88" 34 7/8" 2"
1 quarter 
= 8 bushels = 14,784 in³
1 puncheon 
= 84 wine gallons = 19404 in³
1 hogshead 
= 2 barrels = 72 gallons = 16632 in³
1 butt 
= 126 wine gallons = 29106 in³
1 tun 
= 3 puncheons = 252 wine gallons = 58212 in³
1 chaldron 
= 32 bushels = 256 gallons = 59136 in³
1 last 
= 80 bushels = 640 gallons = 147840 in³
1 oipe, ipet 
= 4 hekat
1 jar 
= 5 oipe
1 hinu 
= 1/10 hekat, used for perfume as well as grain
1 ro 
= 1/32 hinu
1 des 
≈ 0.5 l, for liquids
secha 
for beer
hebenet 
for wine

Roman area

  • Why do you put semicolons in front of and behind each sentence?
  • It makes the text bold. On the other hand the text doesn't need to be bold so I took them out
Please, please read up on Wikipedia mark-up, before making any other edits. Christoph Päper
  • Your reduplication for emphasis raises an interesting point about standards of measure. Whenever one system duplicates another it

repeats what was said before and then adds on something more besides. rktect 7/19/05

  • What does Egyptian stuff do here?
  • The Egyptian measures are the earliest form of the Roman measures.
  • The acre (Egyptian 3kr, the land itself) was first defined
  • as the area of a farmers fields or 3ht.
  • In Mesopotamia the iku was 100 cubits to a side.
  • The Mesopotamian measures are the earliest form of the Egyptian measures.
  • In Egypt the kht was defined as the side of an 3ht. The kht measured 100 cubits long by 1 cubit wide. It originated as the length of the irigation ditch that brought water to the field. At first fields were farmed in pairs with one field left fallow and the other plowed.
  • A field with side 100 ordinary cubits of 450 mm (17 2/3 in)
  • has sides of 147.29 English feet,
  • its area is 21,693 ft² or about half a modern English acre of 43,560 ft².
  • its exactly half an acre if the Egyptian ordinary cubit is 17.7"


  • Some people may not know that before the time of Queen Elizabeth
  • Anglo- Saxon English measures derived from the Greek and Roman
IOW some people believe in the one-system-everywhere theory and don't accept variations.
IMHO everything anyone believes is a bias against the alternative.
Perhaps two measures with the same name and value would be a coincidence.
With an entire system with the same name and value coincidence is harder to support.
  • Queen Elizabeth added 280 feet to the old Roman Milliare or Myle
  • so that a furlong would measure 10 perche and be 10 acres so
  • that 64 square furlongs would egual a square mile.
  • In an Anglo - Saxon Myle there were 625 acres
  • Those acres are measured as 40,000 pes with 625 to a square Milliare
  • (of side 5000 pes) That was the Myle c 49 BC - 1593 AD
  • The Furlong of that Myle was 625 fote.
  • Before that c 800 BC - 49 BC there was a Milos of 600 pous
  • There were 9 aroura to a square stadion and
  • 64 square stadions to a square Milos (of side 4800 pous)
  • meaning that their aroura was 40,000 sq pous.
  • The Anglo Saxons derived their measures from the Germanics
  • and the Germanics East of the Rhine used the Pous
I'd like to see a proof for that. And an explanation. Until then I regard this as a result of deliberately misinterpreted statistics. Christoph Päper 15:28, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Take a look at the page on Medieval Measures.
Look at the values broken down by German city.
How many are evenly divisible by subdivisions of a Greek Milos?
  • The important fact about the Egyptians is that their
  • 3kr or measure of the land itself was derived from
  • the Mesopotamian iku and so was the Greek aroura or thousand.
  • Although initially fields had measured a half acre
  • with sides of 100 ordinary cubits of 17.7"
  • they had always been plowed in pairs and
  • the pair of fields had measured an acre
  • The Egyptians called the field (3ht) and
  • the field of side 100 royal cubits, a st3t.
  • Later as domesticated animals began being used to plow the fields a third field was added and planted in hay or fodder for the beasts of burden.
  • The field of side 100 royal cubits of 20.5" had an area of 29,040 SF so * three st3t was 2 acres.
  • The Greeks called the st3t an aroura or thousand.
  • I would be very suprised if the Roman acre is a squared Roman arpent
  • or that there was a Roman arpent equal to 14400 ft²
  • or about 0.126 ha or "more exactly almost" 1264.673 m².
  • The reason is that none of those measures of area
  • are evenly divisible into a square Roman Milliare and
  • every measure the Romans adopted is if nothing else systematic.
  • 625 pes = 500 remen = 1/8 milliare, 1 milliare = 5000 passus
  • 1 square milliare = 625 acres of 40,000 pes
  • 25 square acres = side 1000 pes, 1 area side 100 pes
  • 600 stadia = 75 miliare = 1 degree