At first an inch was the width of a mans thumb. In the 14th century king edward ii of england ruled that 1 inch equalled 3 grains of barley placed end to end lengthwise.
History Of Fingerprints
Ancient system of measurement using body parts. The romans used this measurement and so can you. The ancient chinese system. Before we had precise standardized units of measure such as meters and feet lengths and even ocasionally volumes were reckoned based on the average dimensions of human body parts. These units are thus considered to be human scale and anthropocentric. Related to the last point the french word for inch is pouce which also. This ignores the way that measuring grew up with people measuring shorter lengths using other parts of the human body.
At some point years ago i picked up the seemingly useless piece of information that an ancient unit of measurement called the cubit was the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. In ancient times the body ruled when it came to measuring. It does not include derived units further unless they are also themselves human based. The only legal measurement system. Then wherever you are. Completely separated from the mediterranean european history of metrology is that of ancient china yet the chinese system exhibits all the principal characteristics of the western.
A more accurate way use your body parts to estimate length is to know your own measurements. This is a list of units of measure based on human body parts or the attributes or abilities of humans. 10 responses to body parts as tools of measurement chris on january 21 2009 136 am. The ancient egyptian units of measurement are those used by the dynasties of ancient egypt prior to its incorporation in the roman empire and general adoption of roman greek and byzantine units of measurementthe units of length seem to have originally been anthropic based on various parts of the human body although these were standardized using cubit rods strands of rope and official. What an interesting post. For an average adult male at least average as of a couple of millennia ago a cubit works out to about 18 inches 457cm.
Ancient measurement of length was based on the human body for example the length of a foot the length of a stride the span of a hand. In body based units of measurement at interesting thing of the day i listed a few such historical units of measure which can still come in handy for rough approximations if you dont have a ruler or tape. Another measurement that i use is an inch made by bending my ring finger into a tabletop shape. The length of a foot the width of a finger and the distance of a step were all accepted measurements. Thus whichever of the measures shows a direct fractional link to the english foot such as the one and one twentieth as above is root then the maximum value of 1064448ft is both the hashimi foot and the original pied de roi both could be classified as a standard geographic persian foot 105 x 101376or the given length of the mycenaen foot at 910315ft could be classified as a root. The digit was the smallest basic unit.
The width of your own palm the length of your own foot and so on. Devin johnston on january 21 2009 259 am. These estimates are just that. It employed parts of the body as a source of unitsfor example the distance from the pulse to the base of the thumb.
Gallery of Ancient System Of Measurement Using Body Parts
