Cubit

Cubits of various lengths were employed in many parts of the world in antiquity, during the Middle Ages and as recently as early modern times. The term is still used in hedgelaying, the length of the forearm being frequently used to determine the interval between stakes placed within the hedge.^[4]

Etymology

The English word "cubit" comes from the

The

Hieroglyph of the royal cubit, meh niswt

Early evidence for the use of this royal cubit comes from the

The Classical Mesopotamian system formed the basis for Elamite, Hebrew, Urartian, Hurrian, Hittite, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Arabic, and Islamic metrologies.^{[11][full citation needed]} The Classical Mesopotamian System also has a proportional relationship, by virtue of standardized commerce, to Bronze Age Harappan and Egyptian metrologies.

In 1916, during the last years of the Ottoman Empire and in the middle of World War I, the German assyriologist Eckhard Unger found a copper-alloy bar while excavating at Nippur. The bar dates from c. 2650 BCE and Unger claimed it was used as a measurement standard. This irregularly formed and irregularly marked graduated rule supposedly defined the Sumerian cubit as about 518.6 mm (20+13⁄32 in).^[12]

Biblical cubit

The standard of the cubit (

Rabbi Avraham Chaim Naeh put the linear measurement of a cubit at 48 cm (19 in).^[19] Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz (the "Chazon Ish"), dissenting, put the length of a cubit at 57.6 cm (22+11⁄16 in).^[20]

Rabbi and philosopher Maimonides, following the Talmud, makes a distinction between the cubit of 6 handbreadths used in ordinary measurements, and the cubit of 5 handbreadths used in measuring the Golden Altar, the base of the altar of burnt offerings, its circuit and the horns of the altar.^[13]

Ancient Greece

In ancient Greek units of measurement, the standard forearm cubit (Greek: πῆχυς, translit. pēkhys) measured approximately 460 mm (18 in). The short forearm cubit (πυγμή pygmē, lit. "fist"), from the knuckle of the middle finger (i.e., fist clenched) to the elbow, measured approximately 340 mm (13+1⁄2 in).^[21]

Ancient Rome

In ancient Rome, according to Vitruvius, a cubit was equal to 1+1⁄2 Roman feet or 6 palm widths (approximately 444 mm or 17+1⁄2 in).^[22] A 120-centimetre cubit (approximately four feet long), called the Roman ulna, was common in the Roman empire, which cubit was measured from the fingers of the outstretched arm opposite the man's hip.^{[23]; also, [24]with[25]}

Islamic world

In the Islamic world, the cubit (dhirāʿ) had a similar origin, being originally defined as the arm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger.^[26] Several different cubit lengths were current in the medieval Islamic world for the unit of length, ranging from 48.25–145.6 cm (19–57+5⁄16 in), and in turn the dhirāʿ was commonly subdivided into six handsbreadths (qabḍa), and each handsbreadth into four fingerbreadths (aṣbaʿ).^[26] The most commonly used definitions were:

• the legal cubit (al-dhirāʿ al-sharʿiyya), also known as the hand cubit (al-dhirāʿ al-yad), cubit of Yusuf (al-dhirāʿ al-Yūsufiyya, named after the 8th-century
  al-barīd), "freed" cubit (al-dhirāʿ al-mursala) and thread cubit (al-dhirāʿ al-ghazl). It measured 49.8 cm (19+5⁄8 in), although in the Abbasid Caliphate it measured 48.25 cm (19 in), possibly as a result of reforms of Caliph al-Ma'mun (r. 813–833).^[26]
• the black cubit (al-dhirāʿ al-sawdāʾ), adopted in the Abbasid period and fixed by the measure used in the
  Islamic Spain under the name al-dhirāʿ al-Rashshāshiyya.^[26]
• the king's cubit (al-dhirāʿ
  Hashemite cubit (al-dhirāʿ al-Hāshimiyya). Other identical measures were the work cubit (al-dhirāʿ al-ʿamal) and likely also the al-dhirāʿ al-hindāsa, which measures 65.6 cm (25+13⁄16 in).^[26]
• the cloth cubit, which fluctuated widely according to region: the Egyptian cubit (al-dhirāʿ al-bazz or al-dhirāʿ al-baladiyya) measured 58.15 cm (22+29⁄32 in), that of Damascus 63 cm (25 in), that of Aleppo 67.7 cm (26+5⁄8 in), that of Baghdad 82.9 cm (32+5⁄8 in), and that of Istanbul 68.6 cm (27 in).^[26]

A variety of more local or specific cubit measures were developed over time: the "small" Hashemite cubit of 60.05 cm (23+21⁄32 in), also known as the cubit of Bilal (al-dhirāʿ al-Bilāliyya, named after the 8th-century Basran qāḍī Bilal ibn Abi Burda); the Egyptian carpenter's cubit (al-dhirāʿ bi'l-najjāri) or architect's cubit (al-dhirāʿ al-miʿmāriyya) of c. 77.5 cm (30+1⁄2 in), reduced and standardized to 75 cm (29+1⁄2 in) in the 19th century; the house cubit (al-dhirāʿ al-dār) of 50.3 cm (19+13⁄16 in), introduced by the Abbasid-era qāḍī Ibn Abi Layla; the cubit of Umar (al-dhirāʿ al-ʿUmariyya) of 72.8 centimetres (28.7 in) and its double, the scale cubit (al-dhirāʿ al-mīzāniyya) established by al-Ma'mun and used mainly for measuring canals.^[26]

In medieval and early modern Persia, the cubit (usually known as gaz) was either the legal cubit of 49.8 cm (19+5⁄8 in), or the

Mughal India also had its own royal cubit (dhirāʿ-i pādishāhī) of 81.3 cm (32 in).^[26]

Other systems

Other measurements based on the length of the forearm include some lengths of ell, the Russian lokot (локоть), the Chinese chi, the Japanese shaku, the Indian hasta, the Thai sok, the Malay hasta, the Tamil muzham, the Telugu moora (మూర), the Khmer hat, and the Tibetan khru (ཁྲུ).^[27]

Cubit arm in heraldry

A cubit arm in heraldry may be dexter or sinister. It may be vested (with a sleeve) and may be shown in various positions, most commonly erect, but also fesswise (horizontal), bendwise (diagonal) and is often shown grasping objects.^[28] It is most often used erect as a crest, for example by the families of Poyntz of Iron Acton, Rolle of Stevenstone and Turton.

See also

• History of measurement
• List of obsolete units of measurement
• System of measurement
• Unit of measurement

References

1. ^ "Definition of CUBIT". 2 February 2024.
2. ^ Vitruvian Man.
3. ^ Stephen Skinner, Sacred Geometry – Deciphering The Code (Sterling, 2009) & many other sources.
4. ^ Hart, Sarah. "The Green Man". Shropshire Hedgelaying. Oliver Liebscher. Archived from the original on 17 January 2019. Retrieved 18 May 2017. On the roadside the finish is clean and neat, a living fence of intertwined branches between stakes placed an old cubit (the length of a man's forearm or approximately 18 inches) apart.
5. ^ Cassell's Latin Dictionary
6. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, Second edition, 1989; online version September 2011. s.v. "cubit"
7. ^ ^{a b} Richard Lepsius (1865). Die altaegyptische Elle und ihre Eintheilung (in German). Berlin: Dümmler. p. 14–18.
8. ^
   ISBN 978-0-87169-232-0
   . p.
9. ISBN 978-0-19-506350-9
   . p. 251.
10. ^ Jean Philippe Lauer (1931). "Étude sur Quelques Monuments de la III^e Dynastie (Pyramide à Degrés de Saqqarah)". Annales du Service des Antiquités de L'Egypte IFAO 31:60 p. 59
11. ^ Conder 1908, p. 87.
12. ^ Acta praehistorica et archaeologica Volumes 7–8. Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte; Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut (Berlin, Germany); Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Berlin: Bruno Hessling Verlag, 1976. p. 49.
13. ^ ^{a b} Mishnah with Maimonides' Commentary (ed. Yosef Qafih), vol. 3, Mossad Harav Kook: Jerusalem 1967, Middot 3:1 [p. 291] (Hebrew).
14. Diverse Kinds, and a larger cubit of 6 handbreadths used to measure therewith the altar. Cf. Saul Lieberman
    , Tosefet Rishonim (part 3), Jerusalem 1939, p. 54, s.v. איזו היא אמה בינונית, where he brings down a variant reading of the same Tosefta and where it has 6 handbreadths, instead of 5 handbreadths, for the medium size cubit.
15. OCLC 752584387
    .
16. ^ Tosefta (Kelim Baba-Metsia 6:12–13)
17. ^ Mishnah with Maimonides' Commentary (ed. Yosef Qafih), vol. 1, Mossad Harav Kook: Jerusalem 1963, Kila'im 6:6 [p. 127] (Hebrew).
18. ^ Epiphanius' Treatise on Weights and Measures – the Syriac Version (ed. James Elmer Dean, The University of Chicago Press: Chicago 1935, p. 69.
19. ^ Abraham Haim Noe, Sefer Ḳuntres ha-Shiʻurim (Abridged edition from Shiʻurei Torah), Jerusalem 1943, p. 17 (section 20).
20. ^ Chazon Ish, Orach Chaim 39:14.
21. ^ Vörös, Gyozo (2015), "Anastylosis at Machaerus", Biblical Archaeology Review, vol. 41, no. 1, Jan/Feb 2015, p. 56
22. ISBN 9780486258393
    . p. 68.
23. doi:10.1155/2014/489757
    .
24. ^ Grant, James (1814). Thoughts on the Origin and Descent of the Gael: With an Account of the Picts, Caledonians, and Scots; and Observations Relative to the Authenticity of the Poems of Ossian. Edinburgh: For A. Constable and Company. p. 137. Retrieved 1 January 2018. Solinus, cap. 45, uses ulna for cubitus, where Pliny speaks of a crocodile of 22 cubits long. Solinus expresses it by so many ulnae, and Julius Pollux uses both words for the same... they call a cubitus an ulna.
25. ISSN 0732-2992
    . ... Roman ulna of four feet...
26. ^
    OCLC 495469475
    .
27. ^ Rigpa Wiki, accessed January 2022, "[1]"
28. ISBN 048642975X
    .

Bibliography

• Arnold, Dieter (2003). The Encyclopaedia of Ancient Egyptian Architecture. Taurus.
  ISBN 1-86064-465-1
  .
• Hirsch, Emil G.; et al. (1906), "Weights and Measures", The Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. XII, pp. 483 ff.
• Petrie, Sir Flinders (1881). Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh.
• Stone, Mark H., "The Cubit: A History and Measurement Commentary", Journal of Anthropology
  doi:10.1155/2014/489757
  , 2014

External links

Wikisource has the text of the 1921 Collier's Encyclopedia article Cubit.

• Media related to Cubit arms at Wikimedia Commons
• The dictionary definition of cubit at Wiktionary