Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Sujata <shevaroys AT yahoo.com>]

Using the forearm for measurement is practiced even
today in some situations in India. For e.g., you buy
stringed flowers by the cubit (length of forearm of
teh vendor). Here's an example of usage of cubit by
some tribals in today's India for building traps
http://www.cmi.ac.in/gift_siromoney/Narikorava/nari_snare.htm.

Best wishes,
Sujata

--- Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org> wrote:

> 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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