Hi Ritva,

> Oh man, I had a hard time finding this posting
> again.... but here I am.

A gold star for trying, then!


> I'd venture to claim that all the measures
> the humans use today, are one way or another
> related to the human body. After all, that must
> have been the easiest way to measure things during
> the time, when the measuring sticks etc. were not
> "invented".

It's a widely accepted theory ...


> However, in AE as elsewhere, once the
> rods/sticks/ropes were taken to use, the length of
> the rod was always the same, and did in no way
> depend on the kings forearm (can you just see the
> difference between Horemheb's and Tutankhamun's
> forearms?)! The Royal Cubit became 20,62 inches
> and stayed that way.
>
> >What other unit were they going to use?
>
>
> They could have used a small cubit, the remen (a
> shoulder), the small or the large span, the "dsr",
> the "nbi"... or any other measure, that was
> commonly used in building and measuring. But they
> used the Royal Cubit. A notable fact is, that
> these RC's can be almost seen as ceremonial rods,
> and have been found buried with notables. And only
> there.
>
>
It is not the Eye of
> Horus that represents the Royal Cubit, it is the
> other way around: The Royal Cubit represents the
> Eye of Horus. I'm sure you can see the difference.

Yes - sorry, possibly I did misunderstand: OK, you're arguing that the RC symbolizes the EH.

>
> But maybe we should just agree to disagree on this
> one, eh?
>
Maybe!


> >But I still can't find any way in which it
> could be specifically connected with either the
> >cubit or the inch. Dilke (1987: 24) says that
> scribes wrote in individual parts of the eye
> >in order to denote fractions of the hekat
> (used as a corn measure). Nothing about units of
> >length, though ...
>
>
> Nothing about units of length? And how would an
> ancient Egyptian write the sentence "the length of
> road to the temple is only half of the length of
> the road to the Nile"? What would they use to
> write the "half"?

I don't know how the AE would have expressed this concept: I don't know if they'd have used the symbol to the left of the pupil in the Horus Eye or not. Nevertheless, although fractions could be expressed by different parts of the HE, I can't find anything that specifically states that the EH was symbolized by the RC.


> Btw, I'm sure that you know the Horemheb rod, and
> it's "mysterious" last division and other
> unexplained details.


Why should you think that? I saw some brief mention of it somewhere recently ... apart from that, I've never heard of it.


What do Hart and Dilke say
> about the last, the longer division?


Nothing, AFAIAA.

Hermione
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