The very first examples revolve using body parts as a way of measuring length and height and stones for weight. History and standards duration.
Standard And Non Standard Units Explained For Primary School
History of measurement using body parts. 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 measure handy. The length of a foot the width of a finger and the distance of a step were all accepted measurements. 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. In the 14th century king edward ii of england ruled that 1 inch equalled 3 grains of barley placed end to end lengthwise. In ancient times the body ruled when it came to measuring. Cubits were a standard unit of length in sumeria egypt and other parts of the middle east long before anyone dreamed of an arbitrary decimal based measuring system.
The roman mile of 5000 feet 1480 m was introduced into england during the occupation. In 1958 oliver r. Smoot was rolled head over heels by his fraternity brothers to measure the length of the harvard bridge. The romans also introduced the mille passus 1000 paces or double steps the pace being equal to five roman feet 1480 mm. At first an inch was the width of a mans thumb. Based on the human body it was taken to be the length of an arm from the elbow to the extended fingertips.
Of course the ultimate body part as measurement tool is the smoot as seen in google earth according to wikipedia the smoot is a nonstandard unit of length created as part of an mit fraternity prank. For an average adult male at least average as of a couple of millennia ago a cubit works out to about 18 inches 457cm. One which gained a certain universal nature was that of the egyptian cubit developed around 3000bc. The roman foot 296 mm was divided into both 12 unciae inches 247 mm and 16 digits 185 mm. The bible clearly details the measurements of noahs ark in cubits a unit of measure based on the length of the forearm from the tip of the middle finger to the elbow. Autoplay when autoplay is enabled a suggested video will automatically play next.
Eight body based units of measurement. There were unbelievably many different measurement systems developed in early times most of them only being used in a small locality.
Gallery of History Of Measurement Using Body Parts
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