Ogygos: "It has been proposed by some that the royal cubit was not designed to encode the diemensions of the Earth but on contrary it was designed based on the dimension of some follow's arm + hand length. They consider this to be indesputable fact so that any other proposition in unacceptable. Can someone please post the evidence - like in hieroglyphic writing which states that the first cubit in Egypt was define in this fasion. Thanks in advance."


Cubit (mH) is written with the sign D42, 'forearm with palm down', the determinative in mH, 'cubit' (also ideogram for same).


An ideogram represents a thing it actually depicts, and as the 'forearm with palm down' (D42) sign was the ideogram for 'cubit', this suggests the cubit was originally derived from the length of an idealized forearm.


The cubit was divided up into 7 palms, and each palm divided into 4 fingers. The 'hand without thumb' sign, D48, is the ideogram for 'palm' (Szp), and the 'finger' sign, D50, is the ideogram for 'finger' (Dba), so based on these ideograms, it seems likely these linear units of measure were derived from or inspired by the forearm, hand and finger.

CT