Talk:History of measurement/Archive 8

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References

Some appear to question the value of looking at things they are not familiar with. Maybe if as they read their way through the references listed below they could more specifically note their objections by book and page it would be possible to address their questions one by one. Rktect

It makes little sense to have a list of references on a page without text. Perhaps someone might like to sort through these and add them to their respective pages (e.g.

Ancient Mesopotamian weights and measures). Jimp
21Sep05

perhaps it will be helpful to point out that some are related to archaeology, others to classical discussions, still others to mathematical discussions or metrology or surveying and a few to linguistic issues.

My point, though, is that there is no text here so why have references? Jimp 22Sep05

Well, now the text is back so let's leave the references ... at least until the text vanishes again. Jimp 22Sep05

mensuration mathematics and architecture

classics

archaeology

marine archaeology

ancient history

linguistics

history

  • Michael GrantThe Rise of the Greeks. Charles Scribners Sons. 1987.

medeival history

disputes

I have marked with {{dubious}} those assertions of rktect's for which I would like to see swpecific sources; and which I deny as phrased. When the tag is in the middle of a sentence, the particular word is disputed.

In general, I would like to see any source for the assertions that the Egyptian and Mesopotamian units are related, that Greek or Roman units are descended from them, or that Scandinavian units are derived from the Greek, in any other sense than the following:

All units are devised by human beings. Humans often use body parts for measuring, especially before the mass production of rulers and standard weights. Units of length based on hands, feet and forearms are therefore common, and do not often differ by more than 10% or 20%.

Septentrionalis 15:07, 22 September 2005 (UTC) I responded on your talk page. Try reading the references. Rktect 02:02, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I have read Herodotus, Vitruvius [sic], and Klein. I have not read Stecchini, but I do not have much confidence in a source which (supposedly) claims that the Renaissance knew anything factual about Egypt; I know too much about the Egyptology of Athanasius Kircher.
i muar, however, thank rktect for specifying where in the library of his references he derives these claims.
Since rktect makes no defence of the claim made by the actual text of the article that the Dutch and Danish measures are descended from the Greek instead of the Roman, I shall delete it.

His comments follow.Septentrionalis 02:30, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Consensus

It is improper to remove dispute tags save by Wikipedia:consensus. They are claims of the existence of a dispute, right or wrong; they are not marks of error.

Consensus can be obtaineed in two ways: convincing the doubter he's wrong, or forming a consensus against him. Dispute resolution is mostly intended to focus more eyes on the problem, and so isolate a lone dissenter. Septentrionalis 02:39, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

responses to your lables of dubious

Article text in italics

Mediterranean and European weights and measures

If you have questions about something that has been marked dubious, and you don't feel the answer provided sufficiently answered your question, try providing the counter cite or reference that leads you to a different perspective. Rktect 12:24, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Many of the

weights and measures
that have been used in Europe and around the Mediterranean are variations on older systems. {dubious}}

Your expression of doubt simply tells me you have no familiarity with the subject matter Rktect 10:38, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

European measures are derived from Greek and Roman measures. If you dispute that you are arguing against the main stream but to give you one cite 

Klein "The World of Measurement" chapters 4-6

Roman measures are derived from the Greek Vitruvious "The Ten Books of Architecture" Greek Measures are derived from the Egyptian Herodotus "The History"Book II

Does rktect really believe everything Herodotus says about Greek indebtedness to Egypt. including the Olympians? If not, why for this? Septentrionalis 02:30, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
When someone gives you numbers to work with, belief is removed from the equasion. All you need do is run the numbers and let them speak for themselves. Herodotus is not the only Greek to speak of the Greeks indebtedness to the Egyptians. Indeed, it would be easier to name Greeks who don't credit the Egyptians than those who do, because the list is much shorter.Rktect 10:38, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Egyptian measures are derived from the Mesopotamian Stecchini "Metrum"

These have all been cited many many times before so try reading some of the references

Different civilizations made adjustments to serve their own purposes however similarities between systems may be found. The accuracy and agreement of definitions improved over time. [dubious – discuss]
rktekt's comments do not support his text; it is possible that he means something else, but he hasn't said it. Septentrionalis 02:30, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
I mean simply read some of the cites. If you don't understand them then ask questions. The example below answers your question. In mainstream discussion the statement is neither contraversial or disputed. The evidence is carved in stone in the form of rulers and rods, weights and the dimensions of fields and building materials.

For a few examples:

  • Mesopotamia used a sexigesimal system of body measures
    • fingers, = 20 mm
    • hands, = 100 mm (five fingers)
    • feet = 300 mm (fifteen fingers)
    • cubits, = 500 mm
    • great cubits = 600 mm
  • Egypt modified that system to make it septenary
    • Fingers = 18.75 mm
    • Palms = 75 mm (four fingers)
    • Feet = 300 mm (sixteen fingers)
    • Remen = 375 mm
    • Cubits = 450 mm
    • Royal cubits = 525 mm
    • Nibw = 600 mm
It is natural for human beings to use fingers, feet, and hands to measure with. Most peoples will define a finger somewhere in the 15-20mm range, because that's the width of most fingers. It is both convenient and natural to have a whole number of fingers in a hand.
That being the case, asserting that this sort of
diffusionism
. This doesn't mean it's wrong; but it should be noted as such and sourced, not claimed as fact or consensus.
Furthermore, the diffusionist view is itself divided, on the question of which was the Great Creative Race that invented measurement (and, often, all human culture): the Hebrews, the Egyptians, the Sumerians, or the Atlanteans. This should also be acknowledged.
Septentrionalis 05:27, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
I would just like to add some data to the discussion. Adultdata gives a range of 11 to 24 mm for the finger width and 16 to 23 mm for thumb width. Arithmetically, 'four fingers' could range from 44 to 92 mm. If we simply add the thumb width to it, 'four fingers plus thumb width' could range from 60 to 125 mm. Measurements of living hands gives width across four fingers ranging from 69 to 110 mm and width including the thumb ranging from 80 to 167 mm. Those data are only for 90%, 1 person in 20 of our comparatively healthy modern population will be smaller or larger than those values. Bobblewik 10:29, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Measurements that are used to define property are often used to impose taxes or tithes resulting [dubious – discuss] in there being one measure for ordinary transactions and another for royal or religious transactions. Though throughout history people and their various representatives in guilds and lobbys, have been very scrupulous in defending the value of their possessions, governments and religions are even more scrupulous about getting their cut.

The first measures were the lengths of the ditches that bordered and defined the fields. [dubious – discuss]

The khet is the side of a field of 100 royal cubits Gardiner, "Egyptian Grammar", Gillings, Faulkner, many others. In Mesopotamia the iku is the side of a field of 100 cubits.

this does not demonstrate the word first.
The letter of Nanse indicates that prior to that time there were no standards. It goes on to describe the international standards which were established at that time. That makes it the first recorded establishment of standards of measure. If you still disagree that Mesopotamia and Egypt were the first to establish standards of measure to define property, why don't you give an example of the earlier system which you think takes precedence. Rktect 12:24, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Since people tend to

surveyors. Mediæval European systems of weights and measures began developing from earlier systems in the iron age. [dubious – discuss
]

Don't be ridiculous , read Klein

From mediæval guilds and trade associations to

church to state
, everyone had vested interests in keeping weights and measures the same. Over time even nonessential changes, like the definition of the inch as three barleycorns, caused widespread confusion and concern. Every time standards of measure changed they changed to the advantage of one group and the detriment of another.

Not really. The word "every" is pretty specific.

Whenever things were changed, as by a king ordering churchgoers to stand in line so the average of their feet could form the basis of a new standard, [dubious – discuss] the essential parts of much older systems were retained by the administrators and judges because they defined property. {{cubious}}

Read Klein

One example of how this worked occurred during the

savants who were busily modifying the traditional standards of measure into the metric system. [dubious – discuss
]

Up to then it had always been counted among the divine rights of kings and popes to establish the standards of what was right and proper and equitable. Now the ability of scientists to measure, weigh, and judge accurately made [dubious – discuss] it difficult if not impossible for church and state to simply decree rather than measure, weigh, and judge by the standards of science what was due them.

This made it somewhat difficult to establish and collect their tithes and taxes without turning to the experts for the arbitration of disputes.[dubious – discuss]

Ah, this opaque prose means "The ancients had surveyors"! I propose to translate. 02:30, 23 September 2005 (UTC)


[Hygini Gromatici De Condicionibus Agrorum]


Earlier during the crusades many Europeans had encountered familiar units of measure in the Ancient Near East. By the Renaissance the study of Greek and Roman measures and canons of proportion had been extended to the study of Egypt. [dubious – discuss]

Metrum

The tag dubious doesn't do a good job of expressing anything except cognative dissidence. Try citing from the reference the passage that you disagree with and being specific as to what part you don't understand. I will answer any questions in that format. Rktect 10:38, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Merge with
Units of measurement
?

There is a great deal of overlap with the

Units of measurement. Jimp
25Sep05

I would like to see your proposal fleshed out in the discussion page before any action gets taken but if we can agree that measurements all have a history it would be really interesting to see the history of measurements tied together in a well organized way that everyone could agree to. Rktect 03:21, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Here's the gist of it.

  1. Cut & paste
    Units of measurement#History
     into this article.
  2. Summerise that section on
    Units of measurement
     leaving a link here.
  3. Organise this page into something coherent.
  4. Split this page into Historical weights and measures and History of measurement. Care must be taken here so as to preserve the page history.
    1. Prepare the article to be split.
    2. Move this page to History of measurement.
    3. Split Historical weights and measures back out again.
    4. Cut & paste this back onto Historical weights and measures replacing the created redirect.
  5. Tidy up, fixing links and stuff.

Shall try fleshing it out more when time permits. Jimp 25Sep05

Historical weights and measures should have links to the history page and history of measures should have links to the units page. Each standard of measure should have its own history and each system should link to other related systems. Taking just a couple of examples, body measures and agricultural measures are systematic. Every system which uses fingers, palms, hands, fists, spans, quarters, feet, remen, cubits, great cubits and elles to measure lengths has a place in that table which should be broken down by historical period and geographical as opposed to political area of usage.

Agricultural measures tend to be uses to measure areas and distsances rather than lengths. Area measures should be tied to the subunits, feet, remen, cubits, great cubits, elles, yards, paces, fathoms, rods, stadia and chains whose multiples define their sides. Distances tend to be distance which are multiples of agricultural measures. Volumes tend to be the cubes of body measures. Weights tend to be defined as a volume of a particular substance.

If there is to be an historical element then it wouldn't hurt to look at the historical size of the units in which commodities were traded. The sizes in which taxes and tithes are defined, the lengths and distances which are mentioned in the the leter of Nanse, the law codes of Hammurabbi, the Mari letters, the Wilbur Papyrus, the Kudurru, Herodotus, Strabo, Eratosthenes 3rd Geography, Marinus, Ptolemy, Pythias, Parthian stations, the legal accounts of land transactions, Higini Grometius, and all the rest of the historical documents which provide information about ancient historical measurements.

The articles surely should be unified, I agree. But perhaps it is better to wait untill such times that the present hurricane is over? It is always better to work when the weather is calm. -- Egil 11:34, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I support the idea of having an article called 'History of measurement'. But I am not not comfortable with the proposed name 'Historical weights and measures'. It is semantically very similar to 'Historical measures'. I am not even sure what will go in it.

The term 'weights and measures' is a legacy term that we now confine to use in legal matters (names of regulations and government functions). The term originated in days when there really were only a few 'measures' (e.g. weight, length, area and volume). People in those days may have seen a distinction between 'weighing' and 'measuring'. With the hundreds of measures available to modern science and the greater understanding of the concepts, we see no such distinction. We now 'measure' the weight. An article with the title 'Historical weights and measures' has the same meaning as 'Historical measures'. That is why editors added (and will add) similar content. Bobblewik 23:23, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Today I found that our dear friend, Rktect, had beaten me too the creation of
Units of measurement#History there. However, the question remains: "Should these be merged?" If so, I'd suggest merging to History of measurement
for the reasons Bobblewik states above. I'm placing merge tags on the articles.
Rktect,
Please don't use this page as a means of getting around the "disputed" tags. Content of
Units of measurement#History
here in an effort to clean that article up.
Jimp 27Sep05
Your proposal called for creating the second page then selectively cutting from both so as to split the page. What you put up has nothing to do with historic measurement. It does some handwaving about the ealiest ancient measures and then jumps to the metric system. If you leave that up in that form it entirely bypasses what you proposed. Rktect 18:48, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
I don't intend it to be left in the form it's in. If it's poorly written, then note: I didn' write it, I merely moved it. I still propose that these pages be sorted out properly. Jimp 28Sep05
By the way, Rktect, have you actually read it? I'd be interested to see where it "jumps to the metric system" as you say. No mention is made of the metric system though a breif mention of this would be entirely appropriate. 　Breif because the history of the metric is amply covered elsewhere. As to bypassing what I'd proposed: I thought that this approach might be more agreeable to everyone concerned.
After all, Rktect, didn't you write "I would like to see your proposal fleshed out in the discussion page before any action gets taken"? Whereupon you took the action of duplicating this article (sans tags) at History of measurement. This made the exact course of my initial plan impossible so I went to plan two.
Plan two is not so different from plan one and in some ways better. No, I don't intend to leave it the way it is. I've put merge tags on the articles. So we merge them to History of measurement and we're back on track (except the history will remain here but that's not necessarily a bad thing).
After the articles are merged we reorganise the text and (if desireable) sort it into History of measurement and Historical weights and measures parts or (otherwise) simply leave it all at History of measurement. Then (in case we've sorted it in two) we put the latter bit back here.
Alternately it may be best to keep them seperate the whole while and simply reorganise them but in parallel and keeping from making too much overlap. Oh, and we can always rename this article, perhaps Historical systems of measurement. Also, Egil, we might be waiting a while to have calm weather across the whole World ... it's fine in my neck of the woods. . Jimp 29Sep05
What I was expecting to see, and thought you were proposing was
1.) the creation of two identical pages
Units of measurement#History and History of measurement
2.) the deletion from one of the history of measurement adding a link to the history
3.) the deletion from the other of the units of measurement adding a link to the units
4.) from the two identical pages we now have a split (not a rewrite)
5.) Neither page should have disputed tags since those merely indicate a lack of knowledgebase which can be addressed here by providing references rather than by making both pages unreadable. Rktect 15:21, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Since the other page now has a good start of its history, what should be here is the units mentioned on the other page organized by historical period rather than simply by culture. Rktect 19:12, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Removal of Redundant Sections

This is just a house cleaning report. The sections titled "Typographical units" and "Units of Mass" were duplicated at the bottom of the article. I removed the bottom two and left the ones at the top of the subject intact. I also added a "see also" reference to the article on "Metrology"--David.c.h 16:39, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

History of Measurement

Suposedly this article is about the history of measurement not the metric system. Before being split it included links to the following articles on ancient systems of measurement. If the metric system is ancient then discussion of it belongs in this article. if not then it doesn't.

The above paragraph is an unsigned comment by Rktect, via his alter ego User:Federal Street. At this point, he pasted in the entire content of the article [1]. I have removed this - I consider it sabotaging of the talk page. -- Egil 12:35, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

The real sabotage is to take an article on ancient measures and transform it into an article on the metric system unbder the subterfuge of splitting it up. Egil is intentionally misleading the discussion to his own speculations and opinions. Federal Street 00:39, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Rktect (or should we call you Federal Street now?),
You know as well as any of us that that is not what happened. Ancient weights and measures was too big so I split it up the way Medieval weights and measures had been. Then I remerged the two to Historical weights and measures. Once they'd been remerged there no longer was the question whether such-and-such a system was ancient. The next move was to reorganise
Systems of measurement where the other half of Historical weights and measurement resides (including those links you cry about). This second new article also contains text split out of Units of measurement. Some of this text dealt with the metric system. Systems of measurement still deals in part with the metric system and rightly so for it is a system of measurement. If you imagine that Systems of measurement focuses on the metric system, you're dead wrong. Indeed there is considerably less focus on the metric system here than there used to be at Units of measurement (including that which formerly was to be found at Physical unit). But you know all this. P.S. I agree with Egil that what you had done to this talk page was sabotage. Jimp
23Oct05
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