Hermione Wrote:
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> Petrie did find variants of the cubit ...

Hermione

It's difficult to get inside of Petrie's head and I don't like the way he goes about averaging cubit lengths anymore than you probably do. He did it with digits as well and that brought on enormous criticism. How I see him fine tuning his royal cubit is probably not all that important but there are a few clues which I feel cannot be ignored. First he refers to the chambers, dismissing the subterranean for obvious reasons, which leaves the KC and QC. The clue he gives is in this passage

"The lengths of the passages are very accurate data, but being only single measures, are of less importance than are chambers, in which a length is often repeated in the working"

"in which a length is often repeated"

It is these repetitions that are significant and so apart from the Kings and the Queens there appears to be little guidance for fine tuning his royal cubit from any other data. The result he got despite the silly averaging is remarkably good 20.62 +/- .005. Now that's a standard in anyone's language.

There was no reason for Petrie NOT to convert all his imperial measures into royal cubits or multiples of the royal cubit. In the absents of any knowledge about other measures he was entitled to do so. What he then found were royals of great variety. To sum up his standard is to say: it's a chamber standard rather than a pyramid standard.

I mentioned other measures and I’ll expand on that later but in the meantime here is an example of confusing multiples.

Petrie’s giza digit = .727 +/- .002 inches. (Petrie source = same page)

Units of .363 where 11 of Petrie's half digits approximate 4 inches

.11 x .363 = 3.993
8¼ x .363 = 2.99475
5½ x .363 = 1.9965

Now there is no such thing as an inch in Egypt but this illustrates how easy it is to convert one of Petrie’s digits into something else. This .363 unit is in fact present at both Saqqara and Giza and it’s to be regarded as a division of some measure other than the royal cubit.

Did Petrie come across other measure and multiples of other measure? Did he try to convert it all into royal cubits? I think so and the result is great variation for the royal cubit.

fmetrol
Graham Oaten

The great amount of labour involved in quarrying and transporting such a mass of masonry as even the casing, has always been a cause of astonishment - Sir Flinders Petrie.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2007 03:33PM by fmetrol.