Talk:History of measurement/Archive 6

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This article needs attention

Rktect,

You might not like seeing the big sign but, of course you'd have to agree, the question is not whether you like it there or not but

whether it belongs there or not. It looks to me as if the article is in need of further attention. Why not leave the sign up till we have something decent here?
Jimp 23Jul05
Rktect 7/23/05 I agree the question is whether it belongs there or not.
It belongs there if work remains to be done and you don't see any improvement.
It doesn't belong there if you don't like something but don't feel like you have the time to spend fixing whatever it is you object to. I have collected and continue to collect a lot of information about ancient measures which I would like to upload.
Today I began working on Hygini Gromatici "De Condicionibus Agrorum" which discusses a Roman Surveyors discovery that the Measures of Germanica were Greek and based on feet which were sides of volumes like the mina and bushel. This in response to someone's claim that they were Anglo Saxon and removal of the volumes and sides to the discussion page.
"They measure in plinthides ,the parcel of land that feeds a household, square centuries, each is six thousand square feet (77 Roman, 75 English feet to a side = 1.3 acres ) including the strips of uncultivated land enclosing the individual parcel, 250 jugerums in total."
"The Praeterea is the foot Ptolomeicus called the mina foot. So therefore 250 eris, as they measure, is 10 x 24. The 24 part of the mina foot is the iug of 356. A strip of uncultivated land called the quattuorus marks the bound of the plowed land.
"Its width measures out at six times the sides of the cube that contain one Greek bushel of dry measure. The measure of plowed land in Cyrenica is a jugerum of the mint. In Germany the foot of the Drusianus is the mint foot and their stadia is one-eighth of their Myle."
"Wherever outside of our boundaries the law of the Romans extends, I don’t care if its to the people of the rus, I shall bring out of Italy whatever requires to be examined and from our standard of measure the nequid, we shall determine what may be with respect to the praeteriss of the foot. The foot Ptolomeicus called, the mina foot lays out as a standard of 100 to the sides of the fields I have become acquainted with." [http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/hyginus_gromaticusx.html
Now, to really appreciate that you also have to read Ptolomies "Geographies" and realise that Ptolomy and Marinus, the Tyrian geographer he was reviewing, were measuring in Persian stadia that were 750 feet long and 500 to the degree because that was the standard of measure that the Persians brought to Phoenicia and Egypt.
Rktect,
I'm not sure whether I see improvement but surely the "clean up" tag should stay until the job's done even though there be improvement. No, it's not a question of taste either: whether or not I may happen to like something is not important. Nor, however, is it important whether I have time to clean it up. If you think that the article is fine as it is, then it makes sense that you don't believe that the "clean up" tag belongs there. But if that's what you think, then we disagree.
There, of course, remains the question of disputed factual accuracy. This is the other sign that you've been constantly removing. Suppose that you are perfectly correct and throughout history all people have indeed used one and the same system of measurement. Does your being correct entail that there need be no sign up there stating that the content is disputed?
Surely the question is not who's right but whether there is any dispute. Is there no dispute? It seems that there is.
You may indeed be the expert here but I'm still to be convinced of even the watered down version of your theory that appears in the introduction. ... throughout History ... is your claim however you don't seem to be dealing with all of history but a section namely Egypt, the Middle East and Europe. The intro seems to imply that there be some underlying theme, some basic system. What does this mean? One system can in part be based on another. Do they share the same theme therefore? I could go on but I'd mainly be repeating myself. The point is that dispute exists thus the sign belongs there.
Jimp 25Jul05
rktect 7/26/05 Though I'm not big on labels, I'm inclined to weight the title expert very heavily toward what you know is what you do. Any farmer knows more than I do about what size his field is. Furthermore since you are at least one person who clearly feels strongly these labels should be there, I propose that you do put them back up.
I would hope you would then feel some responsibility to identify what you think needs to be cleaned up or what you think should be disputed. If you will do that then we can take care of whatever the problems are and then remove the disputes. When I talk about history I talk about that portion of mankind's experience which has been recorded and preserved by whatever means.
I definitely do not limit that experience to any geographical area and certainly agree that the study of metrology can be extended to include Asia, Oceanasia, Sub Saharan Africa, The Americas, and the Artic. Klein is a great source for some of those and more can be googled and put up. I happen to have better knowledge of the ancient near east than I do the Dong Song drum culture, the Lapita or the Inuit but I can give you access to the numbers 1-10 in 5000 languages and divide them into groups by counting methodology.
As to the underlying theme of measures I think it is property, generally people measure, weigh and judge the lengths, areas, volumes and times of the things they care about and they don't like to have other people devalue them by changing the standards they are measured by.
The constant used to keep the measures the same appears to be the same in all the areas of the world which were reached by ancient navigators which according to Plato was an ocean empire larger than Libya, Asia and Europe combined (because it included all the oceans which encircled them). By the Time of Hygini Gromatici, if not Claudius Ptolomy and Marinus, there were Roman coins circulating from Britain to China.

The apportionment of land according to occupation

Rktect 7/28/05 I've come across a really interesting graduate study of mh t3 (land cubits) and st3t (aroura)which attempts to use a number of ancient Egyptian accounts of fields and their owners taxes to show how different occupations seemed to be granted different unit acerages
There was a comment on Sumerian measures to the effect that there was a question as to whether the fingers might not just be different versions of the same digit 16.666... mm
Sumerian tuning
brick measures
metrum 15/16/17/18
For Sumerian units it appears that both the ordinary cubits of 500 mm and the great cubits of 600 mm were divided into 30 fingers so 16.67 and 20 are in a ratio of 5:6 which gets us two of the four. The other two would be the 5:6 of those or 15 mm and 17.67 mm
še: n., barley; grain; a small length measure, barleycorn = 1/6 finger = 1/30 cubit = 1.67 centimeter in Presarg.-OB period; as a surface area measure = 432 square linear barleycorns = 12 square fingers; as a volume measure = 1/180 gín = 1/3 gín-tur = 1 2/3 sìla = 360 cubic fingers = 1/10800 sar = approx. 1.667 liters; 1/180 of a gín or shekel of silver = ca. 0.0463 grams (cf., še-ga/ge) [ŠE
[šu-si]= 30 fingers = 500 mm
zipaþ, zapaþ[ŠU.BAD] half; a length-measure, span = 1/2 cubit = 15 fingers = 25 cm.
éše, éš[ŠÈ rope; measuring tape/cord; length measure, rope = 10 nindan rods = 20 reeds = 120 cubits = the side of 1 square iku in area = 1,0,0 [602] fingers; a surface area measure, = 6 iku; leash (can be an adverbial suffix like eš) (eš, 'much', + eš, 'much') [ŠE3 archaic frequency: 152].
gín, giñ4 small ax(-head) used as money; shekel (of silver) = ca. 8.333 grams; a surface area measure, 1/60 square nindan (sar) = 180 surface še = 2160 (=36,0) square fingers; a volume measure, = 0.3 cubic meters (Akk. kiinu 'true measure', cf., Orel & Stolbova #1459, *kin- "count") [TUN3 archaic frequency: 96; concatenates 3 sign variants].
kùš ell/cubit = 1/2 meter = 30 fingers [šu-si] = distance from elbow to fingertips; forearm; channel (cf., šu-da) (ku, 'to base, found, build', + many).
niš, neš twenty (ní, 'self, body', + aš, 'one [finger, toe]').
kingusili greater part; five-sixths (5/6) (kíñ, 'task', + sílig, 'hand [of five fingers]').
zipaþ, zapaþ[ŠU.BAD] half; a length-measure, span = 1/2 cubit = 15 fingers = 25 cm. (ŠU.BAD: 'open hand' - approx. distance measured by span of outstretched thumb and little finger).
am-si elephant ('wild ox' + 'horn, ray, antenna'; cf., šu-si, 'finger').
gín-tur a surface area measure, little shekel = 1/60 shekel = 1/3600 square nindan (sar) = 3 surface še = 36 square fingers = surface of the side of a cube of 1 sìla capacity.
ma-na-tur a surface area measure, little mina = 1/3 shekel = 60 surface še = 720 square fingers; as a volume measure, = 60 še.
šu-dù-a length measure of 10 fingers = 16.666 cm. ('hands' + 'to stack').
šu-si finger ('hand' + 'horn, ray, antenna').
šu...túkur to nibble or lick one's fingers ('hand' + 'to gnaw, nibble').
umbin-gud oxen hooves; oxen tracks ('fingernail' + 'ox').
umbin...kud to shave; to shear; to manicure ('fingernail' + 'to cut off').
šu n., hand; share, portion, bundle; strength; control [ŠU archaic frequency: 360].
šika potsherd; shell; rind (hand, portion + mouth).
bùzur hand, palm.
kišib(3) n., hand; fist; seal; sealed bulla; receipt (cf., kéš, 'to snatch; to bind'). v., to seal.
sílig hand.
tibir(2,3,4,5)hand; palm; blow, strike ('life' + 'open, release' ? 'the beggar's open palm'). tíbira, ibira merchant, tradesman (Proverb 3.108 describes how the peddler 'flays' or 'skins' the open hand of the customer).
zipaþ, zapaþ[ŠU.BAD] half; a length-measure, span = 1/2 cubit = 15 fingers = 25 cm. (ŠU.BAD: 'open hand' - approx. distance measured by span of outstretched thumb and little finger).
šu-da hand and forearm, as a unit of measurement, ell/cubit (cf., kùš) ('hand' + 'arm').
šu-dù-a length measure of 10 fingers = 16.666 cm. ('hands' + 'to stack').
šu-ri(2)(-a) one-half ('hand' + 'to take, remove' + nominative).

The Table of Sumerian Measures

rktect 7/29/05 Multiple references give the Sumerian measures as exact unit fractions of a common standard.
sargonic math problems using exact unit fractions of a common standard
The finding of thousands of clay tablets at Ebla which were prepared as
tax audits by scribal accountants recording gifts to the various temples
are compounded by this document which shows them used as ratios
sumerian language translation search


Time for another split

I am not sure what's up with this subject and with this article, but the article has now moved into a state of total chaos for anyone trying to find out who-did-what and what-can-we-trust, in addition to very bad markup in places, and so on.

Part of the problem is obviously that the subject at hand is most obviously open to controversy, and may I say, sometimes original research. Another part of the problem is the sheer amount of information, making it impossible to maintain and understand.

If we split up in seperate articles for the various systems, i.e. ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome etc then at least there is a better chance of making each portion more maintainable.

Rktect7/31/05
Its pretty easy to see who did what if you look at the history page.
Most of the recent changes that I have made have been to provide you information
in response to your questions.

Due to the controversy of this subject, we also need a strict requirement of documenting references for all information entered, stating which source claims what. (Doing that from the outset is difficult, but let us work against this target).

Rktect7/31/05
There should be no contraversy. The facts either have an acceptable source or they don't.
In many cases I see assumptions that facts don't have an acceptable source
that can be easily addressed by giving the source.

Let me also add that anonymous contributions which also do not cite sources are IMHO worthless, and should be considered void. -- Egil 09:37, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Rktect7/31/05
That should also apply to questions. If you don't know something, why not check out the topic
and see what has been said by others in the past?

Possible list of new articles:

Ancient Measures by Culture

Rktect7/31/05
Another way to approach the listing of measures would be to break it up by time and unit
These will eventually compare cultures in a less ethnocentric way (note pre-conquest Americas)
They are a work in progress requiring the names and values of many units be filled in
ideally they would also eventually get their value in increments of their own units.

Main issues to be resolved

  • Consistency in syntax
bullets might be reserved for emphasis
  • Cleanup, esp Mesopotamian and Egyptian

More than just another split

What Egil did to the ancient page needed to be done to the mediæval page. I've split it by culture/region/nation. That done, the first split became counterproductive. I've remerged ancient and mediæval. Jimp 6sep05

References

I modifed the format of the first added reference on the list to the Wikipedia preferred format. Could someone get to the rest of them? And consider trimming the list down to maybe a half dozen total. Thanks!

Ken talk|contribs 22:54, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

Rktect 08/13/05 Happy Now?

Standards of measure

Standards of measure are not pseudoscience, nor are they original research.
I have looked at Egil's pages and see no substantive dispute. The following is what it lists.
He claims articles are under attack. Here is what he thinks constitutes attack.
Bizarre and sloppy langue and markup. (He should talk)
the same content copied to a good number of pages. (Yeah, References)
content irrelvant to the context (How would he know what is and isn't relevant?)
the twisting and fabrication of facts (Egil wrote the book on this)

Standard of measure in the copper age

The Copper Age or Chalcolithic is really the First Industrial Revolution
Mesopotamia is broken out as a special case in Standards of Measure in the Jemdet Nasr
Mesopotamia looked to Maakan for copper and possibly Lothal
For the countries bordering on the Mediterranian Sea, the copper trade between
Crete, Cyprus, Egypt and Canaan was financed with Egyptian nub, Nubian gold.
The Egyptians also wanted Lebanon's cedar, juniper and balsaam to mix with
Canaan's Bitumen and Naptha plus the Frankincense and Myhr of Punt
for their mortuary rituals so trade across the Erythrian Sea from Thebes
port of Elim to Elat at the head of the Arabbah began early.
New technologies involving the forging and casting of metals, the use of ceramics,
glass, plaster, mortar, adhesives, sealants, paper, leather, the ability
to use simple machines, the ability to work stone with precision and
to build houses with square corners and place girders in walls with beam pockets
to build boats that can be rigged with sails, to use petrochemicals like naptha,
as drying agents, solvents, and accelerants created new industries overnight.
New industries mean new opportunities for international commerce and trade and
for the first time people begin to specify the terms of written contracts
incorporating standards of measure.

Standards of measure in mediæval Europe

Medieval systems of weights and measures arose from earlier systems. From Medieval guilds and trade associations to banks, and from church to state, everyone had vested interests in keeping weights and measures the same. Over time even non essential changes, like the definition of the inch as three barleycorns, caused widespread confusion and concern. Every time they changed they changed to the advantage of one group and the detriment of another. 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, the essential parts of much older systems were retained by the administrators and judges because they defined property. One example of how this worked occured during the French Revolution when French revolutionaries attempted to use the confusion of definitions to their advantage in order to overthrow the feudal system. They conspired to further confuse the definition of ancient obligations of land in return for service, through their support of the expert authority of various savants who were busily modifying the ancient standards of measure into the metric system. 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 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. Earlier during the crusades many Europeans had encountered familiar units of measure in the Ancient Near East. By the Renaisance the study of Greek and Roman measures and cannons of proportion had been extended to the study of Egypt. Sir Issac Newton was only one of many medieval scholars fascinated by the stability of earlier systems that it was thought might be resablished and overcome the confusion of the Middle Ages as to what should be the proper standard for the common system. The French Metric Sytem which re-introduced the innovative concept of decimalizing the ancient standards as the Greeks had done was first proposed by the Abbe Mouton in 1670. The British Imperial System Imperial system arose out of an attempt to resist the adoption of the Metric System in Europe because it was clearly being used to undermine the foundation of the kings right to rule or establish the standards. The metric system itself had come out of Napoleon's savants attempting to restablish the Ancient measures that they had found reference to in Egypt. SI. Rktect

Herodotus

Citing Herodotus who says that the Egyptian itrw is the Greek schoenus
Citing Klein and many others that
The Greek Schoenus is equal to 60 stadions
The Greek stadion and the Roman stadium are both 185 m
There are 75 Roman Miles to a degree
The Roman Mile became the basis for European measures and the metric system.
Egil makes another claim that my articles are saying
"All ancient measures are defined by each other."
I say the measures of the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks Persians and Romans were related
having not said that about India, China, Oceanasia, Africa and the Americas
Egil makes another claim that my articles exhibit
Resistance towards Metrication.(what has that got to do with the price of cheese?)
I do not subscribe to the idea that Metrification is our manifest destiny
I do not subscribe to the idea that resistance is futile...so what? Rktect

Egil accused by Rktect

Egil makes false claims

Egil makes false claims about what my articles are saying characterising them improperly.
"All ancient measures of length are directly derived from the circumference of the Earth"
What I actually say is that
ancient cultures developed systematic standards of measure
later sytematic standards of measure incorporate two separate earlier systems
body measures and agricultural measures were worked into cannons of proportion
the Greek orders of architecture and Egyptian inscription grids were the result
geo-commensurate standards were first laid out as benchmarks by Egyptian surveyors
This was necessary so they could restablish the bounds of fields after the innundation
Egyptian and mesopotamina surveyors were sophisticated in their geometry
This is exhibited on the Rhind papyrus.
Surveyors used knotted ropes of 100 royal cubits to define the side of a field
A unit of 3 ropes defined the sides of a common cluster of crop rotated fields
one was plowed, one left fallow and one planted in hay for the plow animal.
Property defined in this way remained a stable for system for six millenia
property definitions were incorporated in contracts and deeds
Egil makes another claim that my articles are saying
that the exact size of the Earth was known throughout historic time.
I say the measures of the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans
are to an increasing degree of accuracy comensurate with the great circle of the earth
The sophistication of Mesopotamian geometry and mathematics is well known
Both Mesopotamia and Egypt relate time to space in their measures.
An hour of travel is a specific distance on the ground.
Egyptian mathematics is also substantive

Egil attacking articles

Actually it is Egil that is attacking articles.
He has made a list of every contribution to Wikipedia I have made
He has systematically attacked every one either personally, listing them for vfd,
or marking them disputed, or reverting them deleting references, content and wikification
or actively encouraged others to join him in his attacks
resulting in substantive loss of useful content to wikipedia
At the same time Egil has privately admitted to others that my contributions are substantive
62 How to handle contributions by user:69.164.70.243

I really have a hard time following up his contributions. I'm sure there may be much of value there, but I have a really hard time filtering out what is valuable, and what is, at best, original research. So I guess the easiest thing is simply to revert everything. But it is a lot of work. How do you suggest one handles this? -- Egil 14:21, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I take it this has to do with ancient weights and measures and the pages split off from it and medieval weights and measures. Any others? I haven't really followed that, just noticed some activity with the vague idea that eventually we'd have to go in and do some cleanup work on it. I think you hit the nail on the head, but I haven't looked in detail at many of these changes. Are most of the recent ones by this contributor? I'll watch it for a while now, and take a look at hte pages as they stand now.and see if I have any better ideas. Gene Nygaard 15:39, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
I've given up, and posted this request Wikipedia:AMA_Requests_for_Assistance#Pseudoscientific_attack. -- Egil 14:47, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
I noticed your removal of some of this at mile, and hadn't noticed any subsequent change back. I'll look at that and see if I can help out. Gene Nygaard 15:00, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

[Egil Email to Ken Warren]

Egil claims

Egil claims that there are new articles but they are all the same story. That is false. Since they have now all been deleted or redirected to topics they have nothing in common with its hard to see that.
The first article deals with a copper age industrial revolution. The second deals with medieval trade guilds and the French revolution. Other articles dealt with crop rotation, surveying, social stratification, geography and exploration, cartography, mathematical problems from the rhind papyrus, The Greek orders of architecture and how they were derived from Hatshepsets proto-Doric second colonade, The Periplus of the Erythrian sea, the classical problems of Greek antiquity, records of the 18th and 19th Dynasty campaigns on the border between djadi and upper retnu and how the Egyptian military order of battle lost everything for the Egyptians at the Battle of Kadesh. Quite a wide range of topics actually. All lost now, like a library burned.
Since I consider intentional attempts to mislead to be unworthy of consideration, and I don't find Egil's characterizations either accurate or substantive . Although all do touch on standards of measure in one way or another, every article listed on this page had its own special part of the story to tell


Articles attacked by Egil

A partial list of articles attacked and damaged by Egil

Rktect 19:51, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

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