The early weights and measures of mankind / by General Sir Charles Warren.

  • Charles Warren
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The early weights and measures of mankind / by General Sir Charles Warren. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    95/164 (page 71)
    Egypt. Heron of Alexandria (circa a.d. 600) gives one ancient and two modern systems of linear measure; both he and Didymus (of the same period) give the same proportions between the digit, palm, Italian foot, and cubit. The unit can thus be arrived at within 1 per cent, of the truth, as the length of the Italian foot and Egyptian cubit are known nearly, and by making the unit too great on one side the Italian foot is too small, and by making the unit too great on the other side the cubit becomes too great. It is evidently a system brought in about the time of the later Ptolemies to accommodate Gudean, Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman measures. I take the mile eai'th’s circumference with -2T2-) as the unit, which gives exactly the Roman and Gudean feet. The mixture of systems is very interesting. Thirty-two divisions of the Gudean scale make the cubit; the true measure is 31-J-, so that the 20-61 inch cubit is prolonged by 0-327 inch. The 288,000 digits to the parasang is Persian, adopted by Moslems in later years. The digit itself is ^ of the Gudean digit, and of the -2y- digit. The system generally resembles that adopted by the Moslems in later times (Table IV.). TABLE XXV. Digit. Italian Cubit. Imperial SJL Gudean Foot. Inches. Digit. Digit. Gudean digit ... 3] 0-654 1 60 to 39-25 inches. Digits — — — 0] 0-7S5 1 — — Digit 1 — — 4] 10] 0-873 — — — Palm 4 — — 3-492 — Spitham (Span) 12 — — 10-476 — 16 Exactly the late Gudean foot. Italian foot 13 J 1 — 11-640 — — Exactly Roman foot. Pigon 20 — — 17460 — — Cubit 24 — 1 20-952 — 32 Step 40 3 — 34-920 — — Xyion 72 — — 62-857 SO 96 Orguia (fathom) 06 — — 83-809 — — Calamus 160 12 — 139-682 Stade 9,000 72,000 720 400 8380-949 Mile 5,400 3,000 62857-120 80,000 96,000 1,746 yards. Schsenus )_ Parasang )' 28S,000 21,(300 12,000 25142S-480 320,000 384,000 —