Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 05/09/2005 05:30, tladatsi AT charter.net wrote:

> Almost all traditional units of measurement are rather 
> imprecise by modern standards.  In the English system a 
> yard is the distance from the nose to the end of the thumb 
> (with the neck straight).  A fathom is the length of rope 
> from hand to hand.  A mile is 1,000 double strides (about 5 
> feet) of a Roman legionnaire. ...

No, Jack, in the English system all of these units are now defined with 
reference to the metre, with the inch set at *precisely* 0.0254 metres. 
What you refer to is the historical origina of these measurements, but 
they have in fact been standardised as fixed distances for a very long 
time, e.g. I think the yard was standardised based on the body of one 
particular king many centuries ago, and is more or less unchanged since 
then even though average human body sizes have grown significantly.


> ...  If someone is 
> buying silk from a mercer and serge de Nimes from a second 
> mercer, each at a different price per yard, the difference 
> lengths of their respective arms is not important.  
>  

These differences can in fact be very significant, especially if 
measures vary by up to 10%, and this is why since ancient times there 
have been standards for weight and length, although sometimes applying 
in just one market or small state.

> Yigal is of course that each individual arkwright would 
> measure 300 cubits somewhat differently if they were 
> building a chest / box / ark.  However, so long as only one 
> master arkwright is doing the measuring it does not matter.  
> Even if one side of the ark is a few barleycorns (1/3rd of 
> an inch) longer it has no impact on its performance.  
> Nowadays we find this sort intuitive engineering 
> unacceptable but until rather recently it was the norm.
>
>  
I disagree. Yes, measurements to thousandths of inches are recent, but 
even ancient architecture, engineering such as bridges etc depended on 
reasonably precise measurements, not just the kind of intutuive 
measurement based on an individual's body size.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



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