In french they used to measure in coudées which comes from le coude the elbow. The cubit was just one of numerous units of measurement based on the typical size of body parts.

7 Figure Drawing Proportions To Know
Units of measurement based on human body. Some of the measurement units inspired by the human body are. Ancient egyptian art used a canon of proportion based on the fist measured across the knuckles with 18 fists from the ground to the hairline on the forehead. The foot of a person had been used as a unit in many ancient civilizations like indus river civilization ancient roman civilization greek civilization and egyptian civilization. Mass distance or length area and volume liquid or grain measure. Inchthis does not include units further derived from these units eg. Quite literally it is the measurement of a head.
It does not include derived units further unless they are also themselves human based. Units of measure based on the human body or attributesabilities of a human eg. Distance traveled by light in a vacuum in 1299792458 seconds. Meter m length unit of measurement. 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. The cubit from the latin cubitus is a traditional unit of length based on the length of the forearm.
John clark on january 19 2013 538 pm. Stretch out your hand so that the tip of your thumb is as far away as possible from the tip of your pinky. From the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. Here are a few more. 9192631770 cycles of radiation of an atom of caesium 133. It probably goes without saying that the unit foot was based on the length of a mans foot.
This unit of measurement is reasonably standard and has long been used by artists to establish the proportions of the human figure. These units are thus considered to be human scale and anthropocentric area. Quinaria the cross sectional area of a pipe created from a flat. This is a list of units of measure based on human body parts or the attributes or abilities of humans. 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. The unit foot is one of the oldest measuring units in the world.
Second s time unit of measurement. 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. The 7 base si units of measurement defined by fundamental constants. Measurement system any of the systems used in the process of associating numbers with physical quantities and phenomenaalthough the concept of weights and measures today includes such factors as temperature luminosity pressure and electric current it once consisted of only four basic measurements. Rod unless they are also human based eg.