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. These units are thus considered to be human scale and anthropocentric. It probably goes without saying that the unit foot was based on the length of a mans foot. The handful measurement of objects using body parts. 10 responses to body parts as tools of measurement chris on january 21 2009 136 am. What an interesting post.

Example chefs use handfuls to measure grains rice. Another measurement that i use is an inch made by bending my ring finger into a tabletop shape. 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. Related to the last point the french word for inch is pouce which also. Stretch out your hand so that the tip of your thumb is as far away as possible from the tip of your pinky. 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.

Devin johnston on january 21 2009 259 am. Here are a few more. The cubit was just one of numerous units of measurement based on the typical size of body parts. A handful is a rough measurement of the quantity of dry substances that can fit into a cupped hand. The quantity and the weight of the substance can be roughly identified. It does not include derived units further unless they are also themselves human based.

This is a list of units of measure based on human body parts or the attributes or abilities of humans.

Gallery of Ancient System Of Measurement Using Body Parts