Ancient System Of Measurement Using Body Parts

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Ancient system of measurement using body parts. 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. 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. 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. These units are thus considered to be human scale and anthropocentric.

10 responses to body parts as tools of measurement chris on january 21 2009 136 am. Related to the last point the french word for inch is pouce which also. 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.

What an interesting post. The romans used this measurement and so can you. The width of your own palm the length of your own foot and so on. The ancient chinese system.

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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. 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 the 14th century king edward ii of england ruled that 1 inch equalled 3 grains of barley placed end to end lengthwise. Then wherever you are.

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. In ancient times the body ruled when it came to measuring. Devin johnston on january 21 2009 259 am. 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.

It does not include derived units further unless they are also themselves human based. These estimates are just that. For an average adult male at least average as of a couple of millennia ago a cubit works out to about 18 inches 457cm. At first an inch was the width of a mans thumb.

It employed parts of the body as a source of unitsfor example the distance from the pulse to the base of the thumb. A more accurate way use your body parts to estimate length is to know your own measurements.

Gallery of Ancient System Of Measurement Using Body Parts