ARABIC & EGYPTIAN

GEODESY

John Neal
 Arabic Measures

This article took a very long time to shape up. It began in mild curiosity
at the cubits that would have been used in a reference to Al Biruni’s claim
to have measured the radius of the earth. All of the references that I
found stated the problem and the solution in terms of the metric system,
claiming that Al Biruni had been accurate to within 50 kilometers or
whatever, but never mentioning the module that Al Biruni would have
used. Having found the correct reference and established the likely cubit
I found that Al biruni had done rather better and was possibly correct to
within 2.8 kilometers.
During the course of research, references to the estimations of
the meridian degree as performed at the behest of Caliph Al Mamun
were often encountered. There were several versions of this examination
and therefore I had another cluster on which to exercise comparative
metrology. There were many references as to methods of module
identification, and the article simply grew out of the fully engaging facts
that emerged from the exercise.
As I delved back in time seeking the earliest references to these
geodetic practises, fresh and intriguing facts came to light that brought
home to me the knowledge that this whole subject is little known. A
whole branch of science is ripe to give up its secrets to those who learn
the new metrology, the study of which has barely begun.
 From Arabic geographic conjectures
to Egyptian certainties

The purpose of this essay is to investigate the skills of the Arabs in the
art of geodesy as regards their conjectures on the length of the meridian
degree; also to explore the field of metrology that must of necessity be at
the foundation of any such examination. The explanation of the structure
of metrology and module identification will be given as we progress.

At no historical period was it ever generally believed that the world
was flat, it has always been regarded as spherical. Before Galileo used the
telescope, English and Spanish navigators used charts based upon degrees
of the sphere referring to them as fractions of the circumference. In all
previous civilizations a multiplicity of solutions to this circumference of
the world are offered. They may be expressed in miles, parasangs, farsakh,
yojanas or stadia etc of such vastly different numbers that they have
been interpreted as inaccuracies. On the contrary, the majority of these
estimates are startlingly accurate once the correct modules of measurement
are identified.
All of the recorded Arabian historical estimates of the dimensions
of the terrestrial sphere according to the methods outlined by the authors
or commentators are too accurate to have been arrived at by their stated
methods. Raymond Mercier in his contribution to the comprehensive
works “The History of Cartography” entitled “Geodesy” neatly summed
this up by stating: “Even the most authoritative accounts are schematic and
lack convincing circumstantial details.” He claimed they were not simply
carrying out an a priori measurement; but the act of measurement was
intended to clarify the received tradition.
That is, the solutions to the problem were already a matter of
294 john neal collected works
record and the scientists merely sought to verify these inherited solutions.
A similar conclusion is reached independently by another informed
scholar; this is D A King, he wrote a well balanced article on Arabic geodesy
entitled “Too Many Cooks … A New Account of the Earliest Muslim Geodetic
Measurements” the title is an allusion to the multiplicity of accounts of
the same assessment — that of Caliph Al Mamun’s measurement of the
meridian degree; according to some in the region of Palmyra, Syria, or the
desert of Sinjar, Iraq, according to others. He too supposes that that the
accounts and methods used were attempts to justify what was probably pre
Islamic customary usage.
Before either Mercier or King had reached this conclusion Livio
Stecchini had stated as much in his “The Structure of Linear Units” as so:
“My conclusion is that the operations ordered by al-Mamun did not
provide a datum different from that of 75 Roman miles to the degree. The
purpose of the operations was that of verifying the figure of the ancients, which
was found to be correct. Not one single writer finds a discrepancy between the
datum of al-Mamun and that of 75 miles to a degree. The uncertainty about
the figure of al-Mamun, whether it was 56, 56 ⅔ or 57 miles reflects the fact
that it simply confirmed the data already known. As I have said, some ascribe
to al-Mamun the calculation of 66 ⅔ miles to the degree.”
From the earliest period of Muslim history Arabic scholars had a
necessary interest in geodesy because whatever the location in which they
found themselves they had to establish the qibla and this is the direction of
Mecca that is faced during prayer. Originally they used to face the Temple
of Jerusalem as did all Semitic people and it was Mohammed himself who
altered the convention. Various formulae involving spherical trigonometry
at particular calendar dates are used to determine this direction. The
location of Baghdad is fortunate in this respect as the qibla of Mecca is
indicated by the direction of the midwinter sunset. The Hebrew term is
kibleh and is a direct reference to “the rock of the foundation of the world”;
this is within the precincts of the temple of Jerusalem beneath “The Dome
of the Rock.”
Similar evidence from Islamic texts is also available. In the Midrash
Tanhuma (versions of the Pentateuch) it is said:
arabic and egpytian geodesy 295
“Just as the navel is found at the centre of a human being, so the land of
Israel is found at the centre of the world. Jerusalem is at the centre of the land
of Israel, and the temple is at the centre of Jerusalem, the Holy of Holies is at
the centre of the temple, the Ark is the centre of the Holy of Holies, and the
Foundation Stone is in front of the Ark, which spot is the foundation of the
world.”
Now covered by one of the most revered mosques in Islam, this rock
is believed to be where Mohammed ascended to the “Divine Presence”.
The Dome of the Rock. The Rock in schematic form is top left.
The original Arabian capital under the Ommiad dynasty was
Damascus and this was changed to Baghdad by the more cultured Abbasids.
It was the second Caliph, Al Mamun, who reigned from 813 to 833, having
received scant understanding from the works of Ptolemy and other Greek
geographers regarding geographic distances expressed in various stades
and miles, wished to know their precise values and the exact length of the
meridian degree. He therefore commissioned his foremost astronomers
and mathematicians to conduct the examination in the level area of desert
around Palmyra in Syria. Through the ages there were numerous accounts
of this expedition and many contradictory results in these records. What
is hoped is that merely through the application of metrology that many of
the accounts may be dismissed and equally many may be deemed possible.
In the majority of the accounts of Al Mamun’s examination it is
stated by the authors that the measurement used was the black cubit and
296 john neal collected works
this was an Arabic standard used at this time. There is compelling evidence
of the value of the black cubit from a variety sources. Bockh* mentions the
length as going back to Babylonian times although he does not refer to it as
the black cubit.
There are two distinct stories as to why it was termed “black cubit”.
The first is the belief that it was so called because of the black banner and
robes of the Abbasids who adopted it as the legal standard; the second,
according to Henri Sauvaire “Materiaux”, is that it was the length of the
forearm and hand of a Nubian slave of unusually large stature at the court
of Al Mamun. Because of the integrated nature of metrology the length
of this cubit may be exactly expressed as 540.739mm, or more properly —
1.77408ft. The story of the Nubian slave is more likely to be the correct
version of the two because of the anthropometric nature of metrology. He
would have been 7ft 1in tall and this is why he would have been remarkable.
The other contenders for the cubit of Al Mamun’s geodetic measurement
would have made the man around 6ft 4in — which is not remarkable.
This in no way implies that the measure was devised from the unusual
stature of this fellow and then freshly adopted as the standard measure. As
with all measures, they form a tightly knit group of mutually dependant
unit fractions; at no time can one either be artificially interposed or
“abolished”. It is merely that the slave conformed to a pre-existing unit
and the term “black” adopted as the distinguishing terminology for the
module. Similar stories abound in metrological myth about measures
being adopted from the stature of unusual people or the royal personage.
Additionally, and more probably, Stecchini proposes that the term black
was possibly a mistranslation of an Akkadian word for “short” sahru;
an allusion to the 1½ ft cubit as opposed to the dupondia or 2ft “long”
cubit (in Arabic black is sawda). This two foot version was used widely
by the Ottomans called the builders arsin with a given average length of
.72m which at 4 to 3 of the black cubit may now be exactly expressed as
.720985m.
*(Philipp August Böckh, 1785 to 1867, was a renowned German scholar and metrologist
from the golden age of the study. This was in the middle years of the 19th century when the
subject of ancient metrology was frequently studied and discussed in the most illustrious centres
of learning and scientific endeavour both in Europe and Arabia).
arabic and egpytian geodesy 297
This black cubit was widely dispersed in both the ancient and modern
world. One of its variants is the Jewish cubit (one of many “Jewish” cubits)
given from a diversity of sources as 21 inches, (always convert to decimal
feet). This is 1.75ft, then divide by 1½ and it equals 1.1666 6 recurring feet.
This number differs from the foot of the black cubit by 1:1.01376 and this is
one of the regular separations in the universal metrological structure. The
variations found in every module of metrology are quite deliberate and
there are good reasons for them. At this lesser Jewish value it is precisely
the Russian standard, their sadzhen or 6ft fathom was exactly 7 English
feet.
The sadzhen was divided into 3 arshin; the arshin is a two feet cubit
as opposed the 1½ft of the black and Jewish cubit (the Arabic for cubit is
arsin and sometimes dhira). This practise is common to all cultures. The
cut off point for the two feet cubit is the 1.8ft of the Assyrian cubit as defined
by Oppert in his measurements at Khorsabad this is a two feet cubit each
of .9ft (Latin dupondia). Anything less is a 1½ ft cubit. The foot value of
the Russian foot is the maximum length that may be termed “foot”. This
module became known as the Palladian foot in Renaissance Europe, used
by Andrea Palladio in his architectural designs. It was given as 14 inches
by Inigo Jones when he visited Italy to investigate Palladio’s techniques
(exactly 1.166666ft). However, biographies of Palladio state his foot to
be .3584m and this is the “Root” value of 1.166666ft multiplied (176/175)²
and this too is a regular variant also known in Italy as the Vicentine foot.
Palladio’s foot is the 440th part less than the foot of the black cubit. This
foot unit is also recorded in France by Stecchini as the “pied de terre de
Bordeaux” at 357.214 mm and the “pied le Franche-Comte” measuring
357.8 mm. As the absolute value — the 175th part greater than 1.16666ft
equals 357.632mm they have both been preserved with credible accuracy.
Stecchini also records a related “great cubit” used in Hellenistic Egypt as
.536351m yielding a foot of 357.567 mm, these figures will be summarised at
the conclusion of this section.
In spite of these convincing notes on the pedigree of the black cubit,
if this were truly the standard used in Caliph Al Mamun’s examination of
the Iraqi meridian degree it makes nonsense of all of the Arabic accounts.
This is particularly so because Al Farghani is reputed to be one of the
primary scientist-astronomers who oversaw Al Mamun’s measurement
298 john neal collected works
and it was Al Farghani who had conducted the reconstruction of the
Nilometer at Rawda Island in 861 (now located in the northern suburbs of
Cairo).
Shaft of the Cairo Nilometer
This gauge of the extent of the Nile inundation was accurately
marked in increments of the black cubit; these cubits were found by the
Napoleonic expedition to Egypt to have an average length of 540.7 mm.
At the numerically identified value of 540.739 that is given as 1.77408ft this
may be considered accurate.
Many of the accounts of the measurement of Al Mamun state that
the length of the terrestrial degree is 56 ⅔ miles, each mile of 4000 cubits
of the black cubit. This would be 11.6 kilometres (over 10 %) too long
according to this well provenanced value of the measure. Yet this figure is
frequently repeated in the reports and must be investigated. by Greaves were the “Cossutian” foot of .967ft and the “Statilian” foot of
Firstly, consider the nature of this mile, and in order to do this it
must be regarded as a number of feet. 4000 “short” cubits is 6000 feet.
Surveyors, navigators and geographers use these sexagesimal miles. They
stem from the “fixed” numbers; the stature of a man is six feet or fathom,
600 feet is the stade or stadium and 6000 feet the geographic mile. If the
values of the Greek “Olympian” feet are used then this mile is the modern
“nautical” mile or “knot”, 60 to the terrestrial degree.
In harness with these sexagesimal measures, decimal itinerary
measures as used by the traveller, merchant or the military stem from the
human body in motion. They begin with the step of 2½ft, two of which are
the pace of 5 feet, 100 of which are the lesser 500ft stade or stadium and 10
arabic and egpytian geodesy 299
of these are the 5000ft mile. The step of 2½ft was also referred to in Arabic
metrology both as arsin or gez and was called gradus in Rome as well as pes
sestertius.
Al Mamun’s measurement of the degree was quite unnecessary
because the geometers of his time continued to use the traditional 75
Roman miles as the definition of the degree and this is exactly right, but
the ability to prove it had been lost. This is also true of Renaissance Europe;
although scholars knew by tradition that there were 75 Roman miles to
the degree, they had not only lost the clear definition of the Roman feet
that were originally used in the calculation, but were by then incapable of
accurately measuring the degree. As indeed were the Romans themselves!
Newton also knew by received custom that there had been reliable
estimates of the earth’s dimensions in antiquity and had a lifelong interest
in establishing the clear definition of the modules they had used. He was
more motivated to know the answers than anybody else. His whole work
on the Principia Mathematica had to be shelved for a number of years
after he had completed the general theory of gravitation because without
a sufficiently accurate measurement of the terrestrial degree (which
would enable him to calculate the mass of the earth) the theory was not
demonstrable.
This fact is quite heartrending because he knew of the 1639
expedition of John Greaves of Gresham College to Italy, Constantinople
and Egypt with the express purpose of establishing these ancient units
and anxiously awaited his return. The values of the Roman foot reported
.972ft.
Two very good values of the variable meridian degree may be
established from this report as 75 miles to the degree based upon these
values gives the length of the degree at 10 degrees latitude and the longer
at 44 degrees latitude. The latter is in close agreement with the value
eventually defined by the survey north of Paris conducted by Jean-Luc
Picard in 1671 — 30 odd years after Greaves had provided the necessary
data to establish the fact. Due entirely to Newton’s ignorance of the
particular Italian mile referred to that gave the solution 75 Roman miles
to the degree, the “Enlightenment” period of science was delayed by a
number of years until he had these reliable French survey figures.
300 john neal collected works
Just as the Arabs had used the definition of the degree as 75 Roman
miles, they also continued to use the value given by Claudius Ptolemy as
66 ⅔ miles; this is quite sensible because these reckonings relate as 8 to 9.
Obviously, the Arabs in common with all cultures used many modules of
measurement. These two values linked by the unit fraction of 8 to 9 is the
accepted ratio of the Roman foot to the Belgic foot as established by Nero
Claudius Drusus. This Belgic foot would have a “Root” value of 1.08ft to
the “Root” Roman foot of .96ft. What we are doing here is simplifying the
figures in order to make these comparisons; that is, are we are ignoring all
of the fractured numbers that develop from regular increases in value from
these “Roots” to simplify the reckoning. Whatever the degree of latitude in
question, the subdivisional measurements — feet, cubits, miles etc — vary,
as do the lengths of the degrees. It is customary to reckon the “geographic
foot” as 360000 to the degree; therefore we take this number as the basis
or “Root” to simplify the calculations then the necessary adjustment to the
reality (that is the measured length of the degree in question) may be made
at the termination by using the related longer module of measurement.
This is rather like translating the modules into English.
For example, Ptolemy used 700 stadia to the degree, therefore
360000 ÷ 700 = 514.28571ft. This is a 500ft stade each foot of 1.0285714ft,
this is 36 to 35 of the English foot and is termed a common Greek foot.
This is a very clear example as to module classification and the positive
advantage given by thinking in English feet, which is of equal antiquity
and is a length related to all other modules. Because of this relatedness
the prefixing number, 5 in this case of the 500ft stade enables instant
identification (whereas the equivalent at 156.754 metres lacks such clarity).
This then would be the very stade used by Eratosthenes in his computation
of the meridian as 252000 stadia. The length is also 300 royal Egyptian
cubits and this is rather more than a broad hint at the integration of
metrology. (Eratosthenes’ stade is often referred to as being composed of
300 royal Egyptian cubits).
This was the value Ptolemy had used in the Almagest, later in his
Geographia he stated that the degree was 500 stadia; in which case the
stade would be 720ft which is far too long to classify as a stade, it is more
properly the tenth of the Roman league of 7500 Roman feet or 1 ½ miles
and was the principle itinerary unit used on their maps and mile posts in
arabic and egpytian geodesy 301
Gaul. (This module will shortly be explored when dealing with Peutinger’s map)
As well as 500 and 700 stadia Ptolemy also used 66 ⅔ miles as the
length of the degree, therefore by using the same formula 360000 ÷ 66 ⅔
= 5400 ÷ 5000 = 1.08ft and this is the Belgic foot at 9 to 8 of the Roman
.96ft. Not that it is any sense “Belgic”, Oppert had recorded this length
used in Assyrian Babylon; the scheme is a single system used universally.
These numbers that we are considering are termed the “Root” values.
Constants in the variations of the modules fit the lengths of the variable
meridian degrees at 10o, 37o and 51o latitude at geographic feet of 1.008ft,
1.011461ft and 1.01376ft and these are the variational increases from the
Root.
Because we are using the English foot as reference then these derived
values are also regarded as the formula by which the Root values of all
modules are multiplied to achieve their correct length for the particular
degree. The above foot modules are all well attested lengths of the Greek
“Olympic” feet; it is therefore obvious that the English foot is one of this
series of “Greek” feet. There are many examples of Roman feet of exactly
.96ft, which is 24 to 25 of the English foot and 24 to 25 is the universally
accepted linkage of Roman and Greek metrology.
The Reports of Al Mamun’s degree measurement
The various reports of Al Mamun’s measurement are presented in the
chronological order of their recording.
Ahmad ibn ‘Abdallah known as Habash.
Habash was a Persian astronomer at the
court of Al Mamun and gives a contemporary
account of the geodetic measurement. A
portion of his book “Book of Bodies and
Distances” is still extant and a recent
translation by Y Tzvi Langermann states:
“He transported them (the surveyors) to a
place in the desert of Sinjar. Khalid and his
party headed for the north pole of Ursa Minor, and Ali and Ahmad and their
party headed to the south pole. They proceeded until they found that the
maximum altitude of the sun at noon had increased, and differed from the
302 john neal collected works
noon altitude which they found at the place from which they separated by the
amount of one degree, after subtracting from it the sun’s declination along the
path of the outward journey, and there put arrows. They returned to the
arrows, testing the measurement a second time and so found that one degree
of the earth was 56 miles, of which one mile is 4000 black cubits. This is the
cubit adopted by al Mamun for the measurement of cloths, surveying of fields
and distribution of way-stations.”
Habash concluded by stating that that he had heard of this account
directly from Khalid, joint leader of the expedition.
Al Farghani’s statement.
He was known to the Europeans as Alfraganus, a ninth century
Persian astronomer under the patronage of Al Mamun. His book
Compendium of the Science of the Stars and Celestial
Motions has the reference to Al Mamun’s degree
measurement as so: “In that way we find that the
value of a degree on the celestial sphere, taken on the
circumference of the earth, is 56⅔ miles, each mile
being equal to 4000 black cubits, as was ascertained
during the time of al-Ma’mun - May God’s grace be
upon him! And on this point a large number of the
learned are in agreement.”
Ibn Yunus’ account.
He lived from c. 950 to 1010, an Egyptian astronomer-mathematician
whose principal work was the astronomical handbook Hakimi Zij that
also contains details of geodetic measurements. It
would have been written at least a century and a
half after the death of Al Mamun.
He quotes Sanad ibn ‘Ali as mentioning that
Mamun had requested he and Khalid ibn Abd
al-Malik al Marwarrudhi set out to measure one
degree of a great circle on the surface of the earth.
He also requested that Ali ibn Isa al-Asturlabi and
Ali ibn al-Bhuturi do the same. “We travelled to a
plain near Tadmur (Palmyra, Syria) and there we measured the amount of
arabic and egpytian geodesy 303
a degree of the great circle and found it was fifty-seven miles.” He goes on to
state that the other party did the same and came to the same result. The
two reports composed of each party measuring along the same meridian in
opposite directions and then measuring back to the starting point.
He also quoted the previously mentioned Habash’s report quite
differently from his work Mumtahan Zij, Stating: “They set off for this
purpose in the desert of Sinjar, travelling until two measurements of the
meridian altitude differed by one degree, then they measured the distance
between the two places and it was 56¼ miles, where each mile is four thousand
cubits, these being the “black cubits” that were adopted by Al Mamun.”
Al Biruni’s account.
Al Biruni was a Persian polymath 973-1048, author of a monumental
work on geography Tahid nihayat al-amakin:
“There was chosen a location in the desert of
Sinjar in the area of Mosul, nineteen farsakhs from the
city and forty three farsakhs from Samarra, where they
were satisfied that the ground was level.”
He goes on to describe the same solar
observations at midday and the two parties dividing
and travelling the meridian north and south; the
same setting up of “arrows” or markers along the
course then measuring back to the starting point.
He concluded:
“….and they found that one degree on the meridian is equivalent to fifty
six miles. Habash claimed that he had heard Khalid dictating that number
to the Qadi Yaha ibn Aktham, so (Habash himself ) heard it from the horse’s
mouth; Abu Hamid al Saghani, who heard it from Thabit ibn Qurra, told
me the same thing.
On the other hand, it is related of Al Farghani that he reported two
thirds of a mile in addition to the 56 miles reported above. Similarly I found
all of the records confirm these additional two thirds, and I may not attribute
this to their having dropped out of the manuscript of the Kitab al-Ab’ad wa-
‘l-ajram because Habash derived from that the circumference and diameter
of the earth and all of the planetary distances. When I investigated I found
that they result from fifty six miles only. It is preferable to imagine that these
304 john neal collected works
different results derive from two accounts by two teams. This is a subject
surrounded with confusion, which should inspire renewed investigations and
observations. Who is prepared to help me with this?”
In this concluding statement he echoes the sentiments of the majority
of people who have studied these conflicting reports. It is also worth
noting that Al Biruni very precisely locates this examination as occurring
in the Samarra region of Northern Iraq whereas all the other reports clearly
locate the investigation as occurring in the region of Palmyra in Syria.
These places are separated by some 300 km east west but are measured
upon the same latitude.
Additionally, Mosul and Samarra are separated in terms of latitude
almost exactly two degrees apart and this is the precise distance covered by
the survey given in all of the accounts. If one calculates the two longitudes
of these cities the separation is very precisely 10 farsakhs or parasangs of
the Greek feet of 1.008ft. These facts may or may not be significant. (A
parasang is either 30 x 600ft stadia or 30 x 500ft stadia).
The survey area covered in Al Biruni’s account
arabic and egpytian geodesy 305
­­
From the longitudes of the two cities 43° 7’ 8’’ and 43° 52’ 48’’ with
the reduction of the latitudinal degree to 314386ft, the city separation is
181589ft = close to 10 Greek 18000ft parasang of 1.008ft. The rectangle in
the diagram would be the general area of the survey.
Summary of the degree data.
Habash gave 56 miles
Al Farghani gave 56⅔ miles
Ibn Yunus gave 57 miles. He then quoted another value given by
Habash as 56¼ miles
Al Biruni gave 56 miles but noted that most often it was
quoted as 56⅔ miles.
1 Let us first take 56 miles and divide the degree of 360000 feet by
this number, it equals 6428.57142 divide by 6000 and the foot length is
1.071428ft. This is the precise length of the lesser Belgic foot it is therefore
a feasible estimate.
(This length was used by the Greeks, termed a “Doric” foot by
Dinsmoor. The greater Root value of the Belgic foot at 1.08ft is linked to
this measure by the fraction of the 125th part (1:1.008), at this length it was
recorded by Oppert at Assyrian Babylon. (Beriman) It would also be the
basic foot used in Ptolemy’s calculation of the degree as 66⅔ miles each of
five thousand feet).
2 Then divide 360000 by 56¼ miles of 6000 feet and the result is
1.066666ft and this is distinctly the foot of the cubit of Persepolis, exactly
given by Petrie as 19.2 inches. (This is more correctly 1.6ft; it is almost as
much an occluding factor in metrological definition to express the data in
inches as it is in centimetres, the reason for this is that the subdivisions are
of no importance and the very term “foot” has little to do with the human
appendage, it means basis.) In metrological research it is important to
identify the foot value, whatever the multiple or subdivision and make the
comparisons at that level. Therefore 56¼ miles is also a feasible solution
for Al Mamun’s measurement.
306 john neal collected works
3 Then divide 360000 by the statement of Ibn Yunus’ 57 miles of
6000ft and the resultant foot 1.05263ft is seen to be deficient as a precise
solution. The resultant foot is extraordinarily close to a value of the half
Persian cubit. This is the grandly named Royal Persian Cubit of Darius the
Great and was exactly 2.1ft yielding a foot of 1.05ft and its use as a solution
to the degree conforming to the previous two values, the degree would
have to be 57 and 1/7th miles exactly.
4 When researching Al Mamun’s degree, as observed by Al Biruni, it
is virtually certain that secondary reference sources will state the result to
be 56⅔ miles. Apply the same process of dividing 360000 by 56⅔ miles of
6000 feet and the result is 1.0588ft, once again this is extraordinarily close,
but not exact, to yet another accepted value of the Persian foot so this
solution may also` be rejected. It most certainly cannot be that the degree
is 56⅔ miles in terms of the black cubit or any other.
The Arabist scholar, Paul Lunde, in an article “Pillars of Hercules, Sea
of Darkness” tackles this very same cubit problem, he states:
“So in spite of the terminology al-Farghani uses, his “black cubit”
must in fact refer to either the “surveying cubit” of 48.25 centimetres, or
to the “legal cubit” of 49.8 centimetres. The latter is the more likely, since
we know that it was the most commonly used unit during al-Farghani’s
lifetime.”
The structure of metrology is such that we may now do away with
approximations and express in absolute values. The “surveying cubit” as
mentioned by Lunde has a closer expression as 48.28 centimetres (1.584ft)
once again, this is one of the values of the Persian cubit, similarly, the “legal
cubit” is the Belgic cubit of 49.77cm (1.63296ft).
This means that if the Arabs imagined that the degree was
expressed in terms of the black cubit then what the western world accepts
as this module is a fiction. Either that, or as Mercier and King suspect, the
geographic degree examination of Al Mamun is an allegorical invention.
The facts included from the above Arabic reports are merely the
conclusions regarding the derived lengths. The original treatises are more
arabic and egpytian geodesy 307
detailed and describe the instruments used and methods of use. They all
refer to the involvement of craftsmen such as carpenters and brass-workers
who were commissioned to make the special rods. Ibn Yunus, in particular,
goes into such detail as the dimensions of silver rods that were designed to
be a square cross section of the proportion 24 times as long as they were
wide. This implies that they were cubit lengths or multiples thereof (24
digits to the cubit).
Many of the secondary stories of Al Mamun’s examination relate
that the entire distance of the terrestrial degree was measured by the leap-
frogging of these rods. This is quite impossible. Much smaller distances
can be accurately measured by such means. For example Clarke and
Engelbach (Ancient Egyptian Masonry) report that they experimented
using royal cubit length rods by butting them together then measuring
back along the same line and reported that they found no measurable error
in the method. They were, however, merely using such distances as of very
large buildings.
In the course of the early French surveys of the meridian degree,
distances in excess of ten kilometres were regularly measured by similar
methods in establishing base lines from which they extrapolated the
longer distances by trigonometry. These base lines were taken with the
most exquisite care and as the techniques became refined in the course
of time the surveyors achieved niceties that virtually eliminated error.
William Lambton, who began the survey of the great arc of the Indian
subcontinent (a distance of 28 degrees or 1,930 miles) that was completed
after his death by George Everest, took almost incredible pains to achieve
accuracy.
His original base line taken near Madras was some seven and
a half miles long. He records his methods as the use of 100ft chains
that were housed in wooden coffers to protect them and help stabilise
temperature. After much experimentation he concluded that a one degree
Fahrenheit increase in temperature made a difference of .00742 of an inch
in the 100 foot length (about a fifth of a millimetre in 30 metres). Four
hundred individual moves of the chain were required for this baseline and
the whole process took over eight weeks. Such corrective baselines were
measured intermittently during the survey. It is worth noting that even if
it were possible (terrain wise) to measure a whole degree by the chain or
308 john neal collected works arabic and egpytian geodesy 309

rod method, then at Lambton’s rate of progress it would take one and a Russian Root Reciprocal Root Root Canonical Root Geographic
half years. 1.160038 1.166666 1.173333 1.180038
As well as the use of rods Ibn Yunus is specific in stating that the (35.358cm) (35.560cm) (35.763cm) (35.967cm)
method of measuring the degree was accomplished by the use of cords.
Each of two cords were 50 cubits long and when one was stretched out Standard Reciprocal Standard Standard Canonical Standard Geog.
upon the ground the other was set at the halfway point and the first 1.162674 1.169318 1.176000 1.182720
(35.438cm) (35.641cm) (35.844cm) (36.049cm)
one was then similarly aligned to the second and so on. D A King, who
recorded these accounts, is quite scathingly critical – “For 56 odd miles!” he They have been termed Russian feet because at the “Root” value it is
exclaims and of the reports in general he says “Two groups of astronomers the Russian foot (half arshin) that relates to the Root or English foot by
laden with instruments are reported heading off in opposite directions along a the unit fraction 7 to 6.
meridian in the middle of the desert simply boggle the mind.” This method of classification of variants of the same foot is
massively advantageous over the present custom of calling what is
Notes on the Structure of Metrology (1) essentially the same module a whole plethora of different terms. The black
cubit and its derivative foot are prime examples of this confusion. We
As has been stated, the English foot is one in a series of the Greek feet have already noted many of the variants of the above Russian foot whose
and the spread of standards is as follows: (It is more complex but these are derivatives are variously called black cubit and builders arsin, whose foot
the core values). is the above 1.18272ft (Standard Geographic); Jewish and Russian from
the above 1.166666ft (Root); Palladian or Vicentine 1.180038ft (Root
Greek/ Root Reciprocal Root Root Canonical Root Geographic
Geographic); “pied de terre de Bordeaux”, “pied le Franche-Comte” and
English 0.994318 1 1.005714 1.011461
the foot of the “great cubit” of Hellenistic Egypt all at the above 1.173333ft
(30.307cm) (30.479cm) (30.654cm) (30.829cm)
(Root Canonical).
Standard Reciprocal Standard Standard Canonical Standard Geog. If this method of classification were widely adopted metrology
0.996578 1.002272 1.008 1.01376 would become more understandable because what are essentially the same
(30.376cm) (30.549cm) (30.724cm) (30.899cm) feet would be grouped into a single appellation, in this case “Russian”
with the classification term then pinpointing the intended value. It is
It is important to establish this because we are expressing the modules a remarkable fact that the modules of each nation are subject to these
used by the Arabs in terms of the English foot. Therefore all other modules identical variations. What is even more remarkable is that the units have
are subject to the fractional differences, so these numbers as well as being been preserved for a huge and indeterminate period of time with better
physical lengths are also regarded as the formulae by which all variant than reasonable accuracy.
feet are classified. For example we have considered the family to which
the black cubit belongs and the variants of the basic foot subjected to the
above multiplications would look as follows: Geodesy and the Radius of the Earth

This work grew out of curiosity as to the measurements that

had been used by Al Biruni in another method of estimating geographic
310 john neal collected works
distances. Also detailed in his Tahid nihayat al-amakin, Al Biruni stated
that he had found a way to measure the earth’s circumference that “did not
involve walking in deserts.” The problem was that the vast majority of the
modern statements as to his accomplishment give the results in kilometres
asserting that he was remarkably accurate to within 50 kilometres of the
modern reckoning. Naturally ones curiosity is aroused as to the modules
actually used by Al Biruni (certainly not kilometres) then one can decide
for oneself on the levels of accuracy.
The sought for information was finally located in Raymond
Mercier’s Geodesy article in the Islamic Cartography section, book II of The
History of Cartography. He gives the information as Al Biruni recorded it
and not as a secondary source.
Although Al Biruni claims to have made the examination himself,
he tips his cap to Habash as having proposed the method almost two
centuries before. The method of deducing the earth’s radius from a fixed
point is to locate a distinct peak in otherwise level and featureless country
that affords a clear view to the horizon due north or south (a meridian).
The diagrams were taken from Mercier’s article and illustrate Al Biruni’s methods.
The first diagram shows the believed location of the peak in the Punjab
arabic and egpytian geodesy 311
which is located 110 kilometers south of Islamabad – (about a degree). The
second shows the method of finding the horizon from the peak.
Frustrated by lack of support in the region of the south western area of
the Caspian he had moved the enterprise to the Punjab.
In Al Biruni’s words:
“I changed to another way owing to having found in a region in India
a mountain peak facing toward a wide flat plain whose flatness served as the
smooth surface of the sea. Then on its peak I gauged the intersection of heaven
and earth – the horizon ­– in the prospect, and I found by an instrument to
incline from the east-west line a little less than ¹/3 ¼ degree. I derived the
height of the mountain by taking the summit in two places, and I found it to
be 652 1/20th cubits.”
The third and fourth of Mercier’s diagrams illustrate the method of
determining the height of the mountain.
312 john neal collected works arabic and egpytian geodesy 313

  account for the inaccuracies that are apparent. Perhaps the solution is to
16th century woodcut showing European surveyors using the identical
quadrants and alidades as used by their Arabian counterparts
Here it starts to fall apart for lack of a truly definitive datum. Mercier
quotes Saiyid Samad Husain Rizvi who had written a paper titled “A
Newly Discovered Book of Al Biruni, “Ghurrat-uz-Zijat” and Al Biruni’s
Measurements of the Earth’s Dimensions,” in 1973. It is Rizvi who
quoted the mountain height, but he gave the height of the mountain as it
appeared on the maps with the height above sea level and not the height
of the mountain above the plain. It is vital to know this in order to exactly
identify the cubit length used by Al Biruni; it is only then that one may
assess the accuracy of his findings.
Instead of this Rizvi and subsequently Mercier continue their
analysis on the assumption that the cubit used was one of 493mm. The
problem is that there is no cubit of this exact length; the closest absolute
value is one of 493.269mm. However this difference is too small to
be found in Al Biruni’s commentary on the Measurement of the degree
of Al Mamun in which he had stated: “When I investigated I found that
they result from fifty six miles only.” Would it be fair to assume that he was
referring to his very investigation at Nandana Mountain?
If this is the case then we arrive at a totally different cubit, that
of 495.47mm which is derived from the lesser Belgic cubit while the
former is derived from the Persepolis cubit. Although these measures
are extremely close in value — differing as exactly 224 to 225 — they are
distinctly separate modules. The best way to distinguish these modules is
to reduce them to their foot values expressed in English feet. The (lesser)
Belgic at its Root value is 15 to 14 of the English foot at 1.071428ft and its
variants are as follows:

Root Reciprocal Root Root Canonical Root Geographic

Belgic 1.073864 1.071428 1.086171 1.083708
(feet) (32.731cm) (32.918cm) (33.106cm) (33.296cm)

Standard Reciprocal Standard Standard Canonical Standard Geog.

1.076304 1.082455 1.080000 1.086171
(32.806cm) (32.993cm) (33.182cm) (33.371cm)
18 century Chinese woodcut showing the same methodology although
these techniques had been recorded by them in the first century AD Then the Persepolitan cubit subject to the same reduction to its basic
314 john neal collected works arabic and egpytian geodesy 315

foot at Root value is 16 to 15 of the English foot at 1.066666ft and its the basis of reference has been lost. The system dates from remote antiquity
variants are as follows: and must have been the reference that these Arabic scholars sought from
the time of Al Mamun — hence their lack of common agreement. The
Persepolis Root Reciprocal Root Root Canonical Root Geographic above classification terminologies of the variations are very relevant here
1.060606 1.066666 1.072762 1.078892 because of the latitude at which their surveys were conducted. This was
(32.327cm) (32.512cm) (32.698cm) (32.884cm) between the 34th and 36th parallels.
The meridian length of the 35th degree is 110931 metres and the
Standard Reciprocal Standard Standard Canonical Standard Geog.
36th must therefore be longer; the number that was sought was 110985
1.063017 1.069091 1.075200 1.081344
metres and this was the fixed length that was standard to all measurement
(32.400cm) (32.586cm) (32.772cm) (32.960cm)
systems. It is 364126ft and the 360000th part as the geographic foot is a
At all of their classifications they relate as 224 to 225. Although this foot of 1.0114612ft and has been given the terminology Root Geographic
fraction is small and is the cause of much metrological confusion, this Greek (this was the degree of the Aegean taken from the omphalos of
difference is sufficient to produce the result of 56 “Arabic” miles to the Delphi). All of the values along the first line are appended “Root” and
degree (Al Biruni) and lesser value is 56 ¼ miles to the degree (Ibn Yunis); relate to each other by the unit fraction difference of 175 to 176. The
(56 being 224 to 225 of 56 ¼). next line follows the same rule but the difference between the lines is
These cubit values used by the Arab geometers are nowadays the unit fraction 440 to 441 as shown on p 10. Both fractions are used
expressed in metric terms which make these subtleties totally unfathomable; in the maintenance of integers in circular design and are therefore very
looked at in the terms outlined here one may express the modules more relevant to the Arabic attempts to deduce both the radius of the earth and
precisely. Take the Root Geographic Persepolitan foot of 1.078892 feet, the length of the meridian. This concept of differing modules in circular
multiply by 1½ to obtain the cubit at 1.618338ft then divide by the metre designs for diameter and perimeter integer expressions has long been
at 3.2808427ft and the cubit is 493.269mm. The same process applied to accepted by metrologists and the clarification is as follows.
the lesser Belgic foot yields a cubit of 495.471mm. Both of these cubits are Mercier in his explanation of the errors made by Al Biruni that gave
closely identified by Stecchini as so:1 him an accidentally close approximation of 56⅔ miles to the degree quotes
the number of cubits in the earth radius arrived at from the measurements
“The scholar of ancient and Arab metrology, Mamum Bey, Astronomer at the peak of Nandana. It is 12,851,370 cubits. From the evidence it must
Royal of Egypt (al-Falaki), from several data, such as buildings, itinerary be postulated that these Arabian scholars sought to reconstruct the canon
distances, and units of volume, concluded that the canonical Arab cubit has that had been anciently known and this number of cubits arrived at by Al
a length of 493.2 mm.” Biruni should have been the septenary number 12,857,142 cubits for the
following reasons.
In the next paragraph he mentions a related mediaeval standard of A part of this canon was based on the acceptance of the polar and
Geneva a palmo (half cubit) whose corresponding cubit was 495.52mm. mean radii of the earth being respectively 20854491ft and 20901888ft and
From the empirical evidence one may identify a total of 19 separate these numbers are separated by the fraction 440 to 441. It is a strange
feet and all are subject to the variations as shown in the above tables. Many coincidence that number itself produces this ratio through the medium
are very close in value as are the above and are constantly confused because of the pi ratio universally used at the integers of 22/7. It is most clearly
evidenced through the medium of the English foot because if the perimeter
1 Livio Stecchini: “The Structure of Linear Units”
of a circle is taken as the canonical 360 and this number is regarded as
316 john neal collected works
English feet, then the diameter is 100 royal Egyptian feet. The English
foot is related to the royal Egyptian by the ratio 7 to 8 (1 to 1.142857ft) but
the diameter is 100 royal Egyptian feet of the 440th part longer than the
1 & 1/7th English foot. That is, instead of being 114.28571ft it is 114.5454ft
using 22/7 as pi.
Applying this fact to the figure of the earth then the average degree
calculated from 22/7 times the polar diameter would be the degree of
the Aegean at around 37 degrees (Delphi) and if this were viewed as 56
¼ Arabic miles it would be composed of the cubits of 493.269mm. More
simply it is the Persepolitan cubit of 1.618338ft which is in turn “Root” 1.6ft
multiplied by 1.0114612 it therefore indicates the Aegean degree of “Root
Geographic” classification.
If the mean diameter of the earth is subject to the same multiplication
then the resulting length of the degree is that of the 51st parallel (364953.6ft)
where the geographic foot has lengthened to 1.01376ft and is therefore
“Standard Geographic” classification. Thus the feet, cubit, stadia or mile
lengths that integrally fit this northern degree that is calculated from
the mean radius — then fit the polar radius integrally. For example the
royal Egyptian cubit which at “Root” is 1.714285ft or 12/7 English feet,
fits the degree of 360000 feet 210000 times; therefore this division of the
degree calculated from the mean radius of the earth would yield a royal
arabic and egpytian geodesy 317
cubit 1.737874ft (1.01376 times greater than Root 1.714285ft = Standard
Geographic). In turn, this royal cubit calculated from the mean degree
integrally fits the polar radius 12,000,000 times.
The above diagram shows the significant degrees that conform
to universal variations that are found in the structure of metrology
This happens by virtue of the fact that (as occurs with number
itself ) the 440th part must be added to the module of the diameter to
become integral with the module of the perimeter and coincidentally the
polar diameter is the 440th part less than the mean diameter. The most
graphic example of this occurrence is that of the sacred cubit, which is a
“long cubit” of 2 common Greek feet, and has a 6 to 5 relationship with
the royal Egyptian cubit, at 2.0854491ft. It fits the mean degree 175000
times and is obviously the ten millionth of the polar radius of 20854491ft.
This is the same “sacred cubit of the Jews” that Newton sought from the
proportions of the temple of Jerusalem and which he knew had geodetic
properties. (He narrowed it to be between 25 1/5 and 26 ½ Roman inches;
it is exactly 25 5/7ths Roman inches)
These facts are basic to the ancient canon that by the time of Al
Mamum or Al Biruni was lost knowledge and appears to be what they
sought to re-establish. These figures reveal that had, as is likely, Al Biruni
318 john neal collected works
used the 495mm Persepolitan cubit his error on the calculation of the
earth’s radius was only 2.81 kilometers which is far better than the present
acceptance of his error being estimated as 50 kilometers. This is all that
the author wished to establish in the first place, but such enquiries tend to
snowball.
Measures used by the Arabs from the
Abbasids to the Ottomans
Before the subject is expanded it would be as well to recap on the
modules already identified. As is to be expected, representative units
associated with all of the previous empires which previously held sway
on these Islamic heartlands are present in the metrology of the Arabs.
From the Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, the Greek and Roman
occupations, units associated with their civilizations were used in this
region and this is how historians would explain their presence. However,
such a different picture has emerged through the unit fraction integration
of these branches of metrology that the most logical conclusion that can be
drawn is that we are regarding a single system. Moreover, all of these units
adopted by the Arabs had always been used concurrently by the previous
dominant cultures.
The location of Mesopotamia was the natural lynchpin between the
advanced mathematical cultures of the East — China and India — with
the Greek and Egyptian to the West. From the most ancient times the
exchange of scientific theory is well documented and one measurement
in particular links three locations of common agreement. According to al
Biruni the 8th century scholar Al Fazari recorded the correspondence of the
Indian reckoning of 3300 yojanas and that of the Arabian 6600 farsakhs as
one of the solutions to the circumference of the world; if this is subjected
to the method of analysis previously used it may be demonstrated to be a
correct reckoning.
Take the number perimeter 6600 farsakh and divide by 360, this is
18 /3 then multiply by 3 (3 miles to the farsakh) thus in addition to the
1
miles previously listed there is also a reckoning of 55 miles to the degree.
Take 360000ft to the degree then this foot at 6000ft to the mile is a foot
arabic and egpytian geodesy 319
of 1.090909ft and this is the Sumerian foot. As this foot is linked to the
royal Egyptian foot as 21 to 22 it is a very important link. Because of this
ratio (it is often seen) being 1/3 of pi it is useful in giving integer measures
in diameter and perimeter measurement. This will be clearly evidenced in
the concluding section. (Egypt, the Great Pyramid)
Another important value in the Arabian system was the “Hashimi”
cubit adopted as the standard by the first Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad,
Harun-al-Rashid the father of Al Mamun. (His predecessor Caliph Mansur
had employed a Persian magus, Halit, to design the capital, Baghdad, on
ancient principles of geomancy). The so called Hashimi cubit instituted
by Al Rashid has an accepted length of 649mm (F G Skinner “Weights and
Measures” HMSO. 1967); Skinner proposes that this cubit was a slightly
increased version of the royal Persian cubit of Darius, given as 640mm
or 2.1ft. If this cubit of 2.1ft is increased by 1:1.01376 is 648.8869mm so
this Hashimi cubit may be identified within this system as a “Standard
Geographic Persian cubit.”
As the spread of Islam into Europe from the east had been halted
by the Eastern Roman Empire in the form of Byzantium — so the
incursions from Iberia in the west had been halted by Charles Martell —
the grandfather of the first Frankish emperor, Charlemagne. Within 50
years of this victory of the Franks at Poitiers it became expedient that the
enlightened Harun-al-Rashid made peace with Charlemagne.
The map of Frankish Europe, Byzantium and the Western Caliphates
at the time of Harun al Raschid’s Treaty with Charlemagne.
320 john neal collected works
He posted permanent envoys at the Frankish court where as part of the
reforms of 785AD that were instituted by Charlemagne at the termination
of the Saxon wars, the Franks adopted the Hashimi cubit as their standard.
The foot of this cubit may therefore be exactly expressed as 1.064448ft
and this was the original “pied de roi” that survived as the standard for a
millennium (though problematically) until the Revolutionary metrication
of 1790.
Al Raschid’s envoys at the Court of Charlemagne
The prevailing belief that it was introduced into France at this time
is belied by the fact that this standard was in use during the Roman
occupation of Gaul and most certainly before that. Stecchini noted that
it had been used in harness unidecimally with the Roman foot; that is,
if the value of 10 pieds de roi is taken to be 10.64448ft this is equal to 11
Roman feet of .96768ft, known as the Cossutian foot and here identified
as a Standard Canonical Roman foot2.
2 Pélagaud noted that the interior of a Roman aqueduct in Bologna was
scored with lines in increments of 295mm on one side and 413mm on the other. This
arabic and egpytian geodesy 321
The antiquity of the pied de roi in France is further evidenced by
the findings of the archaeologist Jacques Dassié. He has specialised in
interpreting distances between the cities of Gaul from the information
given on the Roman milliary columns and from the Tabula Peutingeriana
(a mediaeval copy of a Roman map of the whole empire) and has identified
many instances of leagues (7500ft or 1 ½ miles) given in a variant of the Pied
de roi.
Dassié records that the earliest researches into these distances in
Gaul, were conducted by Bourguignon d’ Anville in 1760, who calculated
from the distances between the cities of Gaul a Roman league that equates
to 2211 metres. The Standard Canonical value of the Roman foot is
.96768ft and 7500 of them equal 2212 metres. Pistollet de Saint-Ferjeux,
in 1858 becomes the first to propose a longer league of pre Roman origin.
He is stated to have calculated the league as 2415 metres, and one and a
half English miles is 2414 metres. Therefore the basic foot of this league
may be stated to have been 1.056ft - which is the Root Canonical value of
the Persian foot and directly related to the original pied de roi by a ratio of
1:1.008.
A small section of Peutinger’s table showing Judea, distances
between towns are clearly marked in “leagues” of 7500 feet
is a foot of the Standard Canonical of .96768ft and an Etruscan cubit (Assyrian)
of 1.35752ft “Notice sur la découverte d’un métrage en pieds romains dans un
acqueduc, à Bologne, suivi des observations de M. E. Desjardins.” P 155 E Pélagaud
1879.
322 john neal collected works
Consequently one may positively identify an element of the English
system of metrology, namely the mile of 5280ft is composed of 5000 Root
Canonical Persian feet of 1.056ft. Thus the traditional English league of
three miles is identical to a value of the Arabian farsakh or Greek parasang
of thirty 500ft stadia.3 This Persian foot was used throughout ancient
Greece, most positively at Olympia where the stadium is clearly defined to
this day; a good value of a little over 192 metres may be identified as 600
Standard Persian feet of 1.052386ft, this would be the Root value of 1.05ft
(1/2 cubit of Darius) with the additional 440th part. As a consequence
of these facts it goes beyond conjecture to state that in the structure of
metrology we see a very advanced mathematical system that was universal
and applied with extreme accuracy from a remote period of history with
the modular values accurately preserved until the present epoch.
Although Stecchini never quite axiomatically defined the structure
of metrology, he knew the organisation was there and spent a lifetime
gathering a massive fund of reliable data concerning accurate values of the
3 The illustration below is of a modern steel tape measure showing two marks
at 16 and 19.2 inches.
These are obviously construction modules and in this case they are marks to denote
stud spacing. If the wall stud or ceiling joist is load bearing the lesser 16 inch space is
utilised; if not load bearing the spacing is of the wider 19.2 inch module.
Six of the lesser measure spans eight feet and five of the greater spans the
same eight feet. Ceiling heights are often standardised to the same eight feet.
There is no terminology from the past that is applied to these modules if
viewed from the point of view of the English foot but the 19.2 inch length is the 24
digit Persepolitan cubit and the 16 English inch module is the 20 digit Persepolitan
remen.
In addition to these observations the English (and American) agrarian
systems of measurement are based upon the Saxon foot of 1.1ft, the furlong is 600
Saxon feet and the furlong is the side of a ten-acre square. The rod is ten Saxon cubits
and the chain is sixty Saxon feet.
Thus the English/American system is an accretion of many separate foot
lengths that at certain significant multiples become integral with the English foot
(which is Greek), to this day we have royal Persian in the mile, Persepolitan Persian in
construction and Saxon in agriculture.
arabic and egpytian geodesy 323
linear modules. He stated of the subject:
“I have also been able to determine that the structure of ancient
metrics is even more inter-connected according to numerical structures than
Decourdemanche and Oxé had believed. Ancient measures were organized
according to a scheme which, by its ingenious architecture and by its simplicity,
could be compared with Mendeleev’s periodical table of elements. This should
give pause to those scholars who, in the name of preconceived notions of
ancient culture, have rejected the results achieved by the old metrologists; my
interpretation indicates a level of mathematization and of precision (akribeia)
far superior to that assumed by any investigator of the old school.”
Such ideas as mooted by Stecchini have been considered to
be preposterous by the mainstream modern schools of science and
archaeology. However, a significant number of those who have studied the
subject of metrology in depth are forced to reach similar conclusions; that
of cross-border integration and geodetic association. Notably Algernon
Berriman, who as a fundamental proposition of his 1952 publication
“Historical Metrology” posed the rhetorical question “Was the earth
measured in remote antiquity?”
More obscure but equally well informed commentators provide much
substantiating evidence of these geographic practises that so fascinated the
Arabs. One such is Professor Roslyn Frank of the University of Iowa in
an article entitled “An Essay in European Ethnomathematics” in the course
of which she not only introduces previously unconsidered measures but
makes small errors that are entirely forgivable considering the condition of
confusion that has overtaken metrology.
She quotes Alexis Paucton, a renowned French metrologist who
objected to the French adoption of the metric system. He argued that
the “geometric foot” at 400000 to the degree was a more rational system
mathematically than the ten millionth of the quadrant that is the metre.
Then this is where the error creeps in, he takes the “geometric foot” as the
one third of the vara of Castile, however, the length of this vara is precisely
2.742857ft or .83602m. The value used by the French — and subsequently
Frank — is equivalent to 2.740492ft as derived from three “geometric” feet
of .9134975ft.
324 john neal collected works arabic and egpytian geodesy 325

This small mistake perpetuated by Frank through Paucton was classification value. The proof of this and of the stated values is that the
arrived at through the measurement of the quadrant arc as performed by geographic degree was set by Spanish royal decree at 17½ “maritime
Méchain and Delambre being accepted as 5,130,740 toise. This is derived leagues” this league was 7500 varas (or 1½ times the civil league of 5000
from their recognition of the French foot as 1.065747ft and this is the varas) therefore:
amount of increase which had crept into the foot of Charlemagne that is 17.5 x 7500 x 2.74285714 (vara de Castile) = 360000ft exactly.6
the half Abbasid cubit at 1.064448ft. It was the controversies over the clear Consequently there are 393750 Iberian feet (63) to the degree as
definition of the basic foot values in France that had made the definition against 400000 Assyrian (64). Such perfectly forgivable mistakes as made
and adoption of the metric system a necessity in the first place. Professor by Roslyn Frank and her Basque colleagues are the norm in metrological
Roslyn Frank through similar reasoning had been trying to define the studies ( To be fair, it may be that Frank had used a different value for
“Basque bar standard” which she took to be one seventh of the six feet the vara of Burgos); the subject has deteriorated to an unfathomable mess
French toise. through the lack, or rather loss, of absolute anchor points upon which to
If the original Abbasid value for Charlemagne’s foot is taken then found a canon. This is typified by this Assyrian foot that is hereby shown
the mathematics work perfectly and the intended modules can be exactly to be the Root of this Basque standard.
defined: The variations of this Basque foot are as so:
Six feet of 1.064448ft = 6.386688ft this number ÷ 7 = .912384ft
But the third part of the vara of Burgos or Castile is .9142857ft Assyrian Root Reciprocal Root Root Canonical Root Geographic
This close correspondence occurs because the classification values of 0.894886 0.9 0.905143 0.910315
two quite separate feet are being used.4 Namely the Iberian value of the (27.276cm) (27.432cm) (27.589cm) (27.746cm)
one third of the vara at .9142857ft is a Root value; but the seventh of the
Standard Reciprocal Standard Standard Canonical Standard Geog.
Persian – Abbasid – French toise at .912384ft is a Standard Geographic
0.896920 0.902045 0.907200 0.912384
value of the Assyrian foot. This means that in order to see their true
(27.338cm) (27.494cm) (27.651cm) (27.810cm)
interconnection one may multiply the Iberian value by 1.01376 or achieve
the same result by dividing the Assyrian value by the same 1.01376 then These values are essentially the same foot but are variously known
make the comparison.5 as the lesser foot, Italic, Oscan-Italic, Oscan-Umbrian, Campanian,
If the latter course is taken then the Assyrian foot is decreased to its neo Babylonian, Lydian, Mycenaean and now Basque, and this is by no
Root .9ft because 400000 times .9 equals 360000 and this is the number means all of the terms; yet simply “Assyrian” qualified by one of the above
of Greek feet to the degree. Thus Paucton’s “Geometric foot” is in fact the classification terms would sufficiently group all of them into a simple
Assyrian foot that relates as 63 to 64 of the Iberian foot – at the correct family. Frank also mistakenly believes that what she terms the “Basque
Septuagesimal System” is a localised measure stating:
4 Exactly as we saw with 223 to 224 confusion of the Persepolis and lesser
Belgic measures on p13.
5 2
A very close value to the pied de roi of 1.064448ft is the Root Persepolis 6 It is no coincidence that the “schoinos” of 12000 royal Egyptian cubits
foot of 1.066666ft, a fathom of this foot would be 6.4ft and one seventh of this is is exactly the same length as this Spanish maritime league. In Greece, as the
.9142857ft — the Iberian foot. It is a peculiarity of metrology that all the quite schoinos was reckoned at 40 stadia then these would be 500 common Greek feet of
separate 19 feet relate as 6 or 7 of another, the best known of which is the 6 of the 514.285714 English feet, the exact stadium as used by both Claudius Ptolemy and
common Egyptian to the 7 of the royal. Eratosthenes in their geodetic calculations; (see the concluding chapter).
326 john neal collected works
“….it should be considered indigenous to Western Europe while the
cognitive origins of the system and its ecocentric cosmovision can be traced
back to the Iron Age or even before (Frank 1996a; Zaldua 1996).”
Yet it is obviously but one fragment of a universal organisation because
the very value identified by Roslyn Frank as the septenary 7th of the toise
and 3rd of the vara – the Standard Geographic Assyrian foot – was termed
by Stecchini the Mycenaean foot.
Frank states that these measures probably predate the Iron Age;
a glance below at the oldest known measuring device enables one to state
that they most certainly predate the Iron Age. The length that Prof. Frank
has pinpointed is properly a three feet measure of the Standard Geographic
value of the Assyrian foot of .912384ft. This is also the exact quarter of the
length of the copper bar of Nippur, (given as 1.113m) and is the 400000th
of the degree derived from the mean earth radius (Paucton’s foot). The
location of this bar, it was allegedly dredged from the Euphrates at
Sumerian Nippur, places yet other standards in the heart of the Caliphates.
The copper bar of Nippur 2650 BC, with the part of the analysis that was
conducted by Doctor Florian Huber of the Bavarian Office for Surveying
arabic and egpytian geodesy 327
In order to classify the above cubit one takes the Root Nippur foot of
1.125ft x 1 ½ = 1.685ft then multiply by 1.008 = 1.701ft and this is 51.846cm;
it is therefore a “Standard Canonical” Nippur cubit.
Measures of the Ottomans
and module identification
Many of the following references are taken from an article by Alpay
Ozdural of the Eastern Mediterranean University, North Cyprus: “Sinan’s
Arshin: A Survey of Ottoman Architectural Metrology.”
This is an extraordinarily informative field of reference concerning
the recorded values of many modules. However he goes the route of many
researchers in believing that the inconsistencies he encounters are due to:
“ …a flexibility that allows it to adapt to the gradual changes taking
place in the society. Units may increase or decrease depending on the socio-
economic conditions taking place in the society, or new units produced
reflecting differences in activities or interests.”
However it is clearly demonstrable that the variations he observes
are deliberate, have been permanently there and new units cannot
be “produced.” Apart from this he has gathered together some well
provenanced measures and his account has amusing and informative
anecdotal passages.
Sinan of the eponymous title of the article was Koca Mimar
Sinan Ağa, chief architect of the Ottoman Empire between 1538 and 88.
He built the Selimiye mosque at the behest of Sultan Selim Han. He was
also responsible for the restoration of the Hagia Sophia which by then
was a thousand years old. Sinan’s standard cubit or ell has never been
satisfactorily categorised for which he himself is largely to blame.
As the motivation behind his design of the Selimiye Mosque he
rather peevishly claimed that the infidels had mocked Islam by claiming
that a building of the size and technical expertise of the Hagia Sophia was
beyond the skills of the Muslims to emulate. Sinan’s words were quoted
328 john neal collected works
by Gulru Necipoglu, in The Age Of Sinan: Architectural Culture In The
Ottoman Empire as so:
“…and under the rule of Sutan Selim Han, I demonstrated my
power by making the height of this dome (Selimiye) 6 cubits and its
circumference 4 cubits larger (than that of the Hagia Sophia)”
Considering the fact that the dome of the Hagia Sophia is 55.6m in
height and between 30.9 and 31.8 metres in diameter, yet the Selimiye
Dome at 42.25m high and 31.75m in diameter is demonstrably the same
on one hand and smaller on the other — it is no small wonder that the
definition of Sinan’s arshin is somewhat contentious.
Sinan (left) with a measuring rod
Ozdural notes that in Nepioglu’s quotation regarding the greater
height by 6 cubits and perimeter 4 cubits she assumes these values are
respectively 4.5m and 3m. This would equate to the length of the ell being
2.46063ft and this can only be a step of 2½ ft. Each of these feet would
be .984252ft; this is a common Egyptian foot whose absolute value would
be .985189ft. Her computation makes Sinan’s arshin exactly 75 cm, a value
arabic and egpytian geodesy 329
that Ozdural does not accept due to the sketchiness of the prevailing
knowledge of Ottoman metrology. He quotes many sources and values
as to the identification of various builders or architect’s arshin as distinct
from the smaller mercantile arshin.
Often enough this longer version is referred to as the Hashimi cubit
which means “royal” and seems not to have had a singular identity. The
conflict in the reports begins in the very first quotation of hard and fast
values that he notes, his source being Edward Bernard from a manuscript
dating from 1688.7 Bernard states quite correctly that according to
Evagrius the attributed height of the dome of the Hagia Sophia is 180
Greek feet. (Given as 55.6m this is 182.4148ft and divided by 180 this is
a foot of 1.013415ft which is obviously the Standard Geographic value of
1.01376 to an accuracy of 99.966%; author’s note).
Bernard quotes the Arab scholar Ibn Ma’ruf as stating that this is
equal to 78 Hashimi cubits. If this were the case then at 2.339446ft this
“Hashimi cubit “ is identifiable as a two-feet cubit of the Russian foot
at Standard value, very near but not exact. Ma’ruf is therefore using a
derivative of the black cubit.8 Yet Bernard took from an example of a scale
drawing left by Ma’ruf in a manuscript a cubit that he states is 28.9 English
inches. This can only be a 2½ feet Roman step with an absolute value of
28.8654ins (2.40545ft).
It is small wonder that Ozdural is grasping around trying to make
sense of his data all expressed in metres and this confusion is manifest very
clearly in another of his comparisons where he is attempting to rationalise
three well defined variants of what he takes to be nominally the same cubit:
7 Edward Bernard, De mensuris et ponderibus antiquis libri tres [Oxford
1688] p 219.
8 From a previous page in this present document concerning this Russian
foot: “We have already noted many of the variants of the above Russian foot whose
derivatives are variously called black cubit and builders arsin, this foot is the above
1.18272ft (Standard Geographic); Jewish and Russian from the above 1.166666ft
(Root); Palladian 1.180038ft (Root Geographic); “pied de terre de Bordeaux”, “pied
le Franche-Comte” and the foot of the “great cubit” of Hellenistic Egypt all at the above
1.173333ft (Root Canonical)”.
Now there is yet another category from Bernard, that of the Standard value
of this foot at 1.169318ft (1.16666 x 441/440)
330 john neal collected works
“… the royal measure that Mustapha III issued to serve as the
standard builder’s cubit is equal to 76.4cm. Including this we have so
far established three royal standard measures for the Ottomans. 72.1cm
around 1520, 73.4cm in the fourth quarter of the sixteenth century, and
76.4 in the third quarter of the eighteenth century”. ……. “Those three
were the royal standards of nominally the same measure, but issued
during the reign of different Sultans.”
A sharper picture emerges if these values are expressed in English
feet. 72.1cm becomes 2.365488ft, 73.4cm becomes 2.408138ft and 76.4
becomes 2.506564ft.
72.1cm is two Russian feet of 1.18272ft and would therefore be exactly
4 to 3 of the black cubit of 1.77408ft. (The foot measure was called kadem.)
73.4cm is a 2½ ft Roman step whose foot (with an accuracy of 99.888%
is the Standard value at .9621818ft. Exactly the above length of Ma’ruf ’s
28.9ins)
76.4cm is a 2½ ft step of the Standard Greek foot of 1.002272ft with
an accuracy of 99.965%.
The correctness of this reasoning is borne out by the fact that the
Roman step above given as 73.4 is very nearly 24 to 25 of the Greek step at
76.4 and this is universally accepted as the fractional linkage between these
systemic branches. These subtleties are very easy to determine when the
data is expressed in English feet because, as previously stated, the English
foot is directly related to these ancient standards through being of equal
antiquity; (thereby maintaining the prefixing number in multiples which
is lost through metrification).
Sinan’s arshin which Ozdural attempts to narrow down to a singular
expression is extraordinarily elusive; it never seemed to occur to him that
different standards were used concurrently to create a harmonic whole.
Alexander Thom in his fruitless search for a single “Megalithic Yard” was
similarly minded as are many other experts in their fields. This is a modern
convention, where people search for one definitive measure applied
universally within a culture, but the fact is that one may find a whole
plethora of modules applied in a single construction; the unifying feature
in a construction is that they will be the same classification variant.
arabic and egpytian geodesy 331
Eventually he settles upon the above mentioned 73.4 cm of the 2 ½ ft
Roman foot value as the value of Sinan’s arshin (73.318cm as an absolute).
Apart from this slightly inconclusive attempt to identify this arshin there is
a remarkable amount of interesting data in his article concerning Ottoman
and middle eastern metrology.
He notes that in 1665 John Greaves had recorded the “the cubit of
Cairo” as being 1.824 English feet. It is therefore a two feet cubit each
of .912ft and as the correct value is .912384ft at the Standard Geographic
category of the Assyrian foot. It is exactly the Geometric foot identified
by Paucton and the basis of the Basque bar standard as already established.
Stecchini recorded this cubit as the “large cubit,” ammatu rabitu being
used in Babylon, at 555mm this should be the 440th part shorter than the
Geometric cubit of Paucton at 556mm. Variants of this particular 555mm
two feet cubit are also recorded by Petrie as being cut into masonry at
Roman Ushak in Turkey; he referred to it as “Oscan.” 9 It is remarkable
that this cubit remained in use in Egypt until modern times because the
stone building blocks, known as talalat, were standardised in the Amarna
period of Akhenaten to be a variant, with the cubit 550mm and foot of
275mm dimensions.
Talalat reused as pylon infill
9 This lesser foot is found throughout Europe and the Middle East. Notably
there are 250 of these Standard Geographic Assyrian feet in the length of the
Parthenon stylobate. Just as accurately the 600th part of the length of the running
track of the Halieis stadium measured by David Gilman Romano as 166.5m and 600
feet of .910315ft is 166.478m and this is the 440th part less than the “geometric” foot
of Paucton and the Parthenon.
332 john neal collected works
Another unit standardised by the Ottomans as late as 1760 may also
be demonstrated to date from antiquity. Baron Francois de Tott recorded
it when he had been commissioned by Sultan Mustafa III to build a
number of forts in the Ottoman Empire. Mustafa had given de Tott an
elaborate folding rule in four sections, made of ebony and hinged with
silver. Armed with this meticulous and entirely authoritative instrument
he had no problems in making all of the architects and tradesmen involved
with the scheme abandon their diverse measurements and conform to
this standard. He identified the pic used by the builders as “two feet four
inches and three lines long.” In English feet this is 2.507ft, it is therefore 2
½ Standard Greek feet, the 440th part longer than the English step of 2½ ft
(the standard previously mentioned as 76.4cm).
Ozdural quotes the writings of Ca’fer Effendi from his Risale-i
mi`mariyye an early 17th century treatise on architecture. Ca’fer laments
the condition of confusion that has beset metrology since the years 1585 to
87. This arose because of a currency re-evaluation at this time, previously
four silver akce which made one silver dirham and 128 copper mankar, this
relationship became altered and he stated:
“The science of arithmetic and the calculation of the zira (cubit) are
obsolete and void and completely in disarray.”
He was writing of currency and hence metrological reforms that had
taken place 27 years before the time of writing (1614), he went on to state
that before that date for many thousands of years the earlier reckoning
of the zira was valid. A lessening of the currency can indeed influence
linear measure. Into the twentieth century certain cubit lengths in India
and China were checkable by the diameters of numbers of silver coins
and revaluation of the currency often involved striking a larger number,
therefore, smaller coins from the same ingot.
The stability of the past ages had relied on the carefully maintained
ratio of 5 to 6 between the mercantile cubit and the architect’s cubit and
it is the loss of this ratio that is the disarray that Ca’fer refers to. Ozdural
in his attempts to pinpoint the values of these two traditional cubits does
so very unsatisfactorily. In order to identify the common or mercantile
arabic and egpytian geodesy 333
cubit he consults tables of comparative measures used in trade between
Italy and Constantinople written by Bartholomeo Di Pasi in his Tariffa
de pexi e mesure (1503). In his analysis of these exchange rates Ozdural
accepts that the value of the Ottoman picho or pic was 59.3cm. In reaching
this conclusion he breaks certain rules of logical metrological deduction.
Firstly from these Italian units he gathers that the picho varied
between 58.8cm to 60.2cm, but on analysis these turn out to be quite
different modules; which is rather obvious because of the magnitude of
the variation. 58.8cm is a cubit of two Roman feet (58.856cm) and 60.2cm
is two common Egyptian feet at 60.193cm. Then he commits the cardinal
sin of metrology which is to average these separate modules and calls his
chimera, at 59.3cm, the Ottoman mercantile cubit. The Ottomans would
quite feasibly know this value because it too is accurately another version
of two Roman feet. But this is certainly not how to arrive at it.
Next, he states that this cubit stands at the ratio of six to five with what
he terms the canonical builder’s cubit of 71.2 cm and although this is close,
it is not exactly this ratio. In any event, the closest module to 71.2 appears
to be two Russian feet at 71.112 cm. This stability of the 6 to 5 ratio that
Ca‘fer stated had lasted for “thousands of years” could not possibly have
done so with these mere approximations. Sadly, the road of metrological
research is littered with the corpses of these speculative hypotheses.
The six to five ratio is evidenced by many modules, quite
straightforwardly in some cases such as the Assyrian at 5 relates to the
Belgic as 6, the Iberian at 5 relates to a variant of the Sumerian at 6, as does
Samian to Nippur etc, etc. More interestingly, the ages old reckoning of
this ratio is the sacred Jewish cubit at six to the royal Egyptian cubit of five.
This is a mixed ratio as the sacred Jewish cubit is 2 common Greek feet and
the royal Egyptian is 1½ royal Egyptian feet at their foot value they relate
as common Greek 9 to royal Egyptian 10.
When various elements such 1½ feet cubits, 2 feet cubits and 2½
feet steps are held up for comparison many, many ratios of six to five may
be evidenced and it would be very difficult to identify Ca fer’s intended
Ottoman comparison; that is, without harder evidence than that presented
by Ozdural. He, and most other respected researchers such as Stecchini
are mainly valuable for the data that they bring to the table but not for
their deductive reasoning. All of them missed the underlying structure,
334 john neal collected works
which only Stecchini knew existed and actively sought it.10
Ozdural puts us on firmer ground when he quotes the itinerary
measures that were recorded by Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville.
D’Anville was an eighteenth century cartographer who revolutionised
map making by means of thorough investigations as to the locations of
towns and the topography of regions (previously maps had been most
often slavishly copied from earlier maps). In 1766 he stated that the length
of the Turkish mile to be 758 French toises, as this was long after the
reforms of the toise that had been instituted by Colbert in his capacity as
Superintendent of Buildings in 1668 we can fairly closely determine the
value he used.
Colbert’s reform was considered necessary because the “Toise du
Chatelet” which was the reference standard, had been damaged and finally
lost altogether. Instead of clarifying the value of the pied de roi his reform
had occluded the value and it would seem that Colbert had returned to
a previous method of definition and gave a value that was about 5 lines
per toise shorter than that accepted by the French artisans of the time.
Colbert would not recant and his re-evaluation became the standard.
This new value resulted in acceptance of the French foot as 1.0656ft
this number multiplied by six then multiplied by d’Anville’s 758 toise to the
mile gives close to a Roman mile of 4846.349ft or as stated by Ozurdal’s
conversion 1477 metres. This yields a Roman foot of .969269ft which is
not exact. Fortunately, John Henry Alexander gave another reference to
the length of this Turkish mile in his “Universal dictionary of Weights and
Measures” in 1850. As this was expressed in metres we can give a firmer
value from his comparison that he stated to be 1479 metres and this gives
a far more accurate value of the Roman mile and foot. 1479 metres is
4852.366ft, the 5000th part of which is .97047ft and this error from the
known value of this foot at .971ft amounts to only about .8 of a metre over
the whole mile.
The niceness of these adjustments regarding the French toise du
Chatelet enables one to give rational standards to the confused state of
10 However, the most likely explanation of Ca Fer’s 6 to 5 stable relationship
will be given at the conclusion of this section as the complexity of the relationship is
deserving of a separate explanation from the analysis of metrology so far given.
arabic and egpytian geodesy 335
the value of the pied de roi — which had led to its eventual abandonment
and the adoption of the metre. The consensus of opinion of the artisans
regarding Colbert’s re-evaluation of the toise was that he had shortened
the length by around 5 lines of the French foot (the foot is 144 lines,
the toise 864), this would make the original toise du Chatelet 6 feet of
1.0668672ft and this is 441 to 440 of the original foot of Charlemagne
of 1.064448ft that is the half Abbasid hashimi cubit. Yet at the time of
the final acceptance of the metre as the legal standard in France in 1840
the value of the then abolished French foot, according to Ozdural, was
accepted as 32.47cm and the foot of Charlemagne, half Hashimi cubit, is
at 32.4443cm very similar.
Another Turkish mile is variously given by other nineteenth century
authors that range between 1667 and 1670 metres which may be expressed
accurately as 1668.566m and this mile is based on the Belgic foot of 1.08
multiplied by the Standard Geographic 1.01376. This gives a degree length
of 66.666 miles and is therefore Ptolemy’s mile as well as being the mile
mentioned by Stecchini from Arabic sources (as given on the first page of
this article); thus we have seen the use of both these miles by the Arabians
continuously from the Greeks through the Abbasids to the modern
Ottomans.
Most of the metrological problems that Ozdural struggled with in
his article had their answers in his profuse and scholarly footnotes. The
original eponymous enquiry — into the value of Sinan’s arshin — almost
certainly has no solution. It is more than probable that there was no
singular standard adhered to throughout Sinan’s prodigious career as the
state architect. He oversaw the construction of over three hundred major
works and countless smaller over a period of almost 50 years and his genius
has been likened to that of Michelangelo.
It is Ozdural’s conjectures firstly as to the values of the pied de roi, and
secondly the mystery of Ca fer’s dual 5 to 6 standards, which had remained
stable for thousands of years and had been destroyed by the revaluation of
the sixteenth century that are worthy of deeper scrutiny.
336 john neal collected works
Pied de Roi
The complaint of the French artisans at the 1688 reform of the Toise
du Chatelet, that the length had been considerably shortened from what
they considered to be the standard of Charlemagne, La toise de l’Écritoire.
As stated, his shortening amounted to about five lines of the 864 lines of
the toise. As the line is about 2 ¼ millimetres this is around 13 ½ mm in
the toise and 2 ¼ millimetres in the pied which is quite a considerable
amount; it is enough to push the artisan’s value of the pied into a quite
different standard from that of the Persian variant that is believed to be
the original.
These differences in standard units have little consequence at
the foot and cubit lengths but, of course, at greater distances multiply
into a very considerable error. The comparison between the toise of the
artisans, known as La toise de l’Écritoire and that of the reformed La toise
du Châtelet was carried out in 1688 by measuring the length of the Grand
Gallery of the Louvre using both standards. The length was found to be
219 toises 9 inches 7 lines according to the Toise de l’Ecritoire, and 220
toises 1 foot 2 inches 7 lines according to the new toise du Chatelet.11 Thus
a value of less than a tenth of an inch between the original feet magnifies
to 7 English feet over the near 1400 feet length of the gallery.
(These measurements had been carried out on the original gallery that
was finished in 1608 under Henry IV. Unfortunately these comparisons
cannot be confirmed into definite measures by a modern comparison of
the same distance due to subsequent alterations to the gallery length).
Ozdural noted that early in the seventeenth century Marquardus
Freher had measured an iron rod kept in the chamber of the Electors
Palatine. It carried a silver inscription clearly stating that it was the standard
of Charlemagne: Carlus Impr. jussit cubitus istu facere juxta mensuram
suam (Paucton, Métrologie, p 78). He gave the length of the rod in terms
of the Leiden foot as six feet three inches; the Leiden foot, also known
as the Rhineland foot, was particularly well preserved as the “Rijnlandse
roede”12 (twelve feet of this foot) and was extant as a rod on the mediaeval
11 Stecchini The Problem of Lineal Standards
12 In 1770 Frederick II legalized the Rhineland rod as Prussia’s standard of
arabic and egpytian geodesy 337
town hall of Leiden. Its length was 3.767358m, Freher’s value of the toise
de Charlemagne may therefore be stated to be 1.962165m yielding a foot
of 1.072926ft.
This is precisely 1.008 times greater than the foot of the of the
original hashimi standard of the Abbasids of 1.064448ft and makes perfect
metrological sense; this would have been the original standard of the
artisans and if the toise of this value is reduced by its 176th part it reduces
by almost 5 lines and this is then the lesser toise introduced by Colbert
(the 176th part of 864 lines is 4.909). The manipulation of measure by
these regular fractions had been totally forgotten by this time, so how had
Colbert reduced the toise precisely in accord with the ancient method of
reckoning?
It must be noted at this juncture that the above value of the pied
de roi of 1.072926ft has expanded into the realms of the lesser Belgic
(sometimes called Doric) that has its Root value as 1.071428ft. In the field
of metrological identification one must always be aware of such overlaps
and often enough it is the context in which the measure is found that
validates its authenticity. (This is exactly like knowing when a word of
identical pronunciation, such as bow or bough, is the meaning indicated).
Notes on the Roman foot
Another standard that had been from time immemorial common to
both the regions of the Caliphates and the Franks was the Roman foot.
Stecchini wrote in The Problem of Lineal Standards:
In Paris the standard of the Roman foot was kept in the form of an aune
equal to 4 feet. A sample was kept by the corporation of mercieres and one
by the corporation of drapers; the aune merciere kept in Rue Quiquenpoix
was considered more authoritative, possibly because the roy des merciers had
authority all over France and because the corporation manifested its activities
at all important fairs. (In Spain the Roman foot had to be exhibited at all
fairs). At the time of introduction of the metric system the aune merciere
length for surveying and both civic and military construction.
338 john neal collected works arabic and egpytian geodesy 339

was calculated as 1188.446 mm. ( foot of 297.1115) and the aune drapiere as
1185.665mm ( foot of 296.416). Roman Root Reciprocal Root Root Canonical Root Geographic
0.954545 0.960000 0.965486 0.971003
Yet this same aune merciere was described by Ozurdal as so: (29.094cm) (29.261cm) (29.428cm) (29.600cm)

Standard Reciprocal Standard Standard Canonical Standard Geog.

The French cloth merchant’s measure, the aune, kept in the Bureau of
Merchants, which still exists, measures in terms of the reformed pied de roi
three pieds seven pouces ten and five tenths lignes, that is 118.81cm. The
engraved date of this standard is 1554. The edicts of both Henri II (in 1557)
and of Francois I (in 1540) fixed the length of this very same standard as 3 pieds
7 pouces and 8 lignes. 13 This definition of the aune in the sixteenth century
yields 32.65cm for the value of the pied de roi thus confirming its established
value before 1667.
Although these minor discrepancies are understandable because no
two people will come to exact agreement when testing a length by means
of a simple ruling instrument. What this reveals is that there was no
longer a universally agreed fixed measure to consult whereby measures
can be determined by calculation rather than mechanics; that is, to see
the measures one against another through the unit fraction connections.
Just as we have noted on the pre reform pied de roi and that instituted
by Colbert; the resulting confusion that had been caused was to be the
beginning of the end for the traditional measuring units.
As the value of the Roman foot is pertinent to the following
explanation of Ca’Fer’s fixed ratios it would be as well to identify these
small discrepancies that had crept into these French standards. Below is
the table of the Roman feet showing their core values. The Root is .96 at
24 to 25 of the English foot and the variants are subject to the same unit
fraction connections that we have with seen with all of the other modules
that have been mentioned.
0.956715 0.962182 0.967680 0.9732096
(29.227cm) (29.394cm) (29.562cm) (29.731cm)
These are the foot lengths of the four Roman feet aunes as recorded
by Stecchini and Ozurdal:
1188.446 mm each foot = .974776ft
1188.1 mm each foot = .974492ft
1185.665 mm each foot = .972495ft
It would seem that the discrepancies from the listed and well proven
values are quite large, and although the longer measures are but rarely
encountered, they are quite legitimate. All of the listed measures may
be increased from the Standard Geographic maximum of the table by
a further 440th part. It is at this increased value that the extended foot
reaches compatibility with the most northerly degree of longitude that
is subject to the metrological discipline, that at the latitude of the Arctic
Circle. The Roman foot would extend to .975421ft and the values above
are then in agreement to better than one part in a thousand and the foot
of the aune drapiere at .972495ft is within one part in 1300 of the Standard
Geographic .9732096.
These values are known from other sources, from a work on French
regional measures: le pied de Hainaut .29343m = .96269ft (99.946 accurate
to the Standard value of .9621818ft) and le pied de Tournai .297769m =
.976933ft, very close to the above extended values. 14 (Le pied de Hainault
is the same foot that Bernard had recorded in Ottoman metrology as
depicted by Ma’Ruf, above). All of the measures of Arabia are found in

14 Tarifs métriques de tous les anciens Poids et Mesures du département de

Jemmape et de ceux des départements de Sambre et Meuse, de la Dyle et de l’Escaut By
13 (Machabey, La Metrologue, pp.34-35) J-B Renard, 1806
340 john neal collected works
France from antiquity and one could extend this statement to the whole
of Europe. However it is the Roman foot that is of particular interest in
identifying the lost 5 to 6 ratio that Ca’fer referred to that had been stable
for “thousands of years.”
Ca fer’s dual 5 to 6 standards.
Examples of measures that relate as 5 to 6 of another were given on
a previous page of this document, but few measures do so if the same
classification value is used, one notable exception is the relationship of 5
Roman to 6 royal Egyptian. This may take some explaining.
It is well established that the Roman foot is 24 to 25 of the Greek.
Many dozens of references from antiquity state that the Roman furlong of
625 feet equals the stadium of 600 Greek feet. Every single variant of the
Roman foot is equal to a recorded value of a Greek foot at the ratio of 24
to 25.
It is also established that the Greek feet have a ratio of 7 to 8 with the
royal Egyptian feet. This is most clearly evidenced through the medium
of the English foot. Take the English foot as a variant of the Greek and
its cubit is 1.5ft. Add one 7th it equals 1.714285ft (12/7 English feet) and
this is one of the commonest values of the royal Egyptian cubit. It is
substantiated both in calculated distances such as the schoinos of 12000
cubits and (Eratosthenes) stadium of 300 cubits. Also from buildings,
the step pyramid of Zoser at Saquara and the pyramid of Amenemhet III
at Dashur evidence the use of this length ( J S Perring “Survey of Certain
Pyramids in Egypt”) and most conclusively it is the measured length of
surviving cubit rods. This is the length of the cubit rod of Amenemipt in
Turin and the length of the cubit rod of Maya in the Louvre with given
lengths of respectively 522, and 523mm (12/7ft = 522.5mm).
Therefore, if the Roman foot of .96ft is equal to the English/Greek
foot as 24 to 25 and the English 1 to Egyptian 1.142857ft as 7 to 8 then no
sensible unit fraction links the Roman foot to the Egyptian, it is 21/25. Yet
many writers from antiquity have stated either the Roman foot equals 5 to
6 of the royal Egyptian foot or 5 to 9 of the royal cubit; Stecchini states in
his “The Origin of English Metrics”: “Metrological tables of the Roman period
arabic and egpytian geodesy 341
make this cubit equal to 9/5 of a Roman foot or 532.702 mm.”
If this is the case then he has identified a royal cubit of 1.74771ft which
far exceeds the accepted value of the cubit. The royal cubit has been pushed
to this value by virtue of the fact that it is 9 to 5 of the most established of
the Roman feet, that of .971002ft and the cubit of this foot at the 5 to 6
ratio with the royal cubit has an absolute value 532.73 mm or 1.7478ft and
this length is known to metrologists as the “great cubit of Babylon” but it
is obviously an extended value of the royal Egyptian cubit.
Ozdural in his notes presents the same equation, attributed to
Heron of Alexandria. He quotes from Friedrich Hultsch, Metrologicorum
Scriptorum Reliquiae (Leipzig 1864) “Didymus described the Ptolemaic foot
which stands to the Roman foot as four palms to three and a third — that is,
the ratio 6:5.”15
There must therefore be two Roman feet that may be appended
“Root” that stand in ratio to each other as 1:1008 or a difference of the
125th part. These would be the values termed in this document greater and
lesser Roots. The greater Root Roman would be .96ft and the lesser Root
Roman .952381ft. The original “core” values of the tables as presented are
not simply extended by this process but the greater and lesser remain at
their Root and the complete table is duplicated with all of the classification
terms altering by the value 1.008. For example by starting the table with
Root .952381ft the previous Root of .96ft, then shifts to the Standard
Canonical position. This is rather like an octave change in music.
This change in position makes a great deal of numerical sense
because the value of the Standard Canonical Roman cubit is then 1.44ft
to the Royal Egyptian cubit 1.728ft and the Jewish sacred cubit 2.0736ft,
therefore the Roman to Egyptian is 5 to 6 and the royal Egyptian is 5 to 6
of sacred Jewish. (Echoing 122 123 and 124 — thereby evidencing the purely
numerical foundation of metrology). Although this 6 to 5 ratio was used
to differentiate the Roman and Egyptian measures in antiquity, the greater
Roman foot was also used concurrently in Egypt; 500 Standard Roman
feet of .9621818ft is the height of the Great Pyramid and this is identical
15 This statement is equally likely to have been made by Heron of Byzantium.
The Ptolemaic also called Philaetarian is the royal Egyptian measure.
342 john neal collected works arabic and egpytian geodesy 343

to 280 royal cubits of 1.71818ft, this would be Petrie’s cubit of 523.7mm. 16

The fact that this reduced Roman foot had this 5 to 6 reationship Nowhere is the relationship of the Roman harnessed to royal Egyptian
with the royal Egyptian neatly clarifies a commonly accepted metrological measure more striking than in their agrarian and urban schemes. The basic
fallacy that is repeated ad nauseam. This is the fiction perpetrated by linear measure of the agremensores was the actus of 120 Roman feet, this
Petrie that the diagonal of a square with the side of one royal cubit is the number squared or actus quadratus, when doubled as a rectangle was the
length of two remens, or 40 digits. These digits are slack approximations jugerum of 120 x 240ft. Two of these as a square of 4 actus were called
of Roman digits and until Petrie proposed this formula there was no a heredium, 100 heredia was a century and four centuries was a saltus.
ancient precedent for this reckoning. However, this reduced Roman cubit The entire area of tilled land was thus divided up and evidence of this
is the 20 digit remen of the 24 digit royal cubit, thereby proving it to be a centuriation is found throughout the Roman Empire.
traditional Egyptian module.
For these reasons Ca Fer’s stable relationship of 5 to 6 that had pinned
down and stabilised the ancient reckoning between the cubits cannot be
stated with certainty, but the choice has been narrowed to the Roman cubit
and royal Egyptian cubit or to the royal Egyptian cubit and sacred Jewish
cubit. Both are feasible and all three modules had been used throughout
the Caliphates and in ancient Egypt.

Hatshepsut’s obelisk pictured is also designed to be 100 greater

Roman feet, probably 97.32ft, Berriman reported it as 97.2ft

16 .9621818ft is the basic foot of the builders arsin of Ma’Ruf on P22 and
the length of the pied de Hainault P27, twice this length was the cubit of Twente in
Holland, it was the foot of Kalenburg and Pomena in Germany among many others, The area of the saltus, shown above, is within
widely known throughout Europe at this precise length. a few square feet of the Saxon 120 acre “hide”
344 john neal collected works arabic and egpytian geodesy 345

Egyptian foot makes the 120ft side of the basic actus exactly 100 Royal
Egyptian feet (1 ht or plethron). However, the means of Egyptian land
division was based upon the 100 cubit “khet” as a length and the lesser
Roman foot maintains its sexagesimal relationship as 180 feet to 100 royal
cubits.
There is a strong possibility that these methods of dividing areas into
squares led to the approximation for pi as recorded by the Egyptians as
the area of a circle being obtained from squaring 8/9ths of the diameter;
as shown on the left by Gaetano Barbella taken from the street plan of the
Turin centuriations.

Surviving centuriation patterns in the landscape of Puglia.

The identical scheme underlies their civic planning below is

the centuriation scheme underlying the city blocks of Augustan Turin,
Piedmont. The 5 to 6 relationship between the lesser Roman foot and

Many archaeologists believe that this crude ratio for pi was the
extent of the Egyptian knowledge, which is an absurdity due to the
overwhelming evidence that the ratio generally used was that of 22/7
by both Romans and Egyptians. Any deviation from true pi was for the
maintenance of integers or convenience as above.
Since at least the 5th century BC the Greeks employing the
same modules had used the same methods of town planning. The most
renowned of the Greek surveyors was Hippodamus of Miletus who
planned the building, first of his home city, Miletus, then a host of other
places including Piraeus. He designed cities in increments of the Roman
actus. Olynthus is particularly interesting because of the steepness of the
According to Gaetano Barbella, 2008
346 john neal collected works
terrain that illustrates how the skilfully surveyed blocks maintained the
grid plan on the sloping ground.
The Romans continued universally to plan their towns on the
Hippodamean system and certain Italian cities, Florence for one,
retained the royal Egyptian cubit as their civic standard measure until the
nineteenth century adoption of the metric system. These royal Egyptian
standards were also maintained by the Maltese at the time of the British
occupation of the island, very exactly as the half royal cubit and the royal
foot at their Root value.
Because of the extreme antiquity of the royal cubit and the Roman
cubit it is these measures that were in all probability the standards that
Ca’Fer had stated were stable for “thousands of years” at a relationship of 6
as the architect’s cubit to 5 of the mercantile cubit. We must therefore look
to ancient Egypt to identify the precise standards and the most ancient
statements as to the geodetic application of the “stades” that had so aroused
the curiosity of the Arabic scholars and which they sought to define.
Miletus, in present day Turkey is shown on the left and Olynthus on the
right, Olynthus is planned in blocks of one by two and a half actus, therefore
also 100 by 250 royal Egyptian feet.
arabic and egpytian geodesy 347
Ancient Egyptian geodesy and metrology.
“Egyptian civilisation was not a development, it was a Legacy.” John
Anthony West.
Of all the ancient geographers (he invented the term “geography”) it is
Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276-194 BC) who is most quoted as having made
a fair assessment of the dimensions of the earth by means of acceptably
reasonable scientific methods. In common with many classical authors
none of his works survive; it is only through copyists and others that quote
him (notably Strabo) that his findings have endured.
However, a close examination of his stated methods of a determination
of the circumference of the world have prompted many to condemn his
procedure as too imprecise; in exactly the same way that Mercier, King, and
Stecchini, as scientists, had seen through the techniques of the Abbasids
as being totally inadequate for the task. Yet, as will be demonstrated, he
was correct down to the fine detail in his conclusions. It is widely believed
by modern researchers that due to his position as Chief Librarian of the
Library of Alexandria he had the necessary answers at his fingertips and
all he had to come up with was a plausible method of working backwards
from the known solution.
This then begs the question, who was responsible for the original
survey? A question that must remain impossible to answer, all we can do
is find the earliest geodetic references; we may then positively state that
the knowledge existed at that time. In Egypt this takes us back to the Old
Kingdom.
Cleomedes in his On the Circular Motions of the Celestial Bodies gives
the most plausible account of Eratosthenes estimate of the size of the earth.
Most reports simply state that he calculated the distance from Syene to
Alexandria by the use of gnomons. For the southern determination it was
taken at Syene by where a gnomon casts no shadow at the summer solstice
noon and on the same date Eratosthenes used the angle of a shadow cast
by either a tower or obelisk to determine the northern limit at Alexandria.
The problem here is that the disc of the sun occupies about half a degree of
the heavens and it would be difficult to pin down the southern boundary
348 john neal collected works
because the sun would cast no shadow from a vertical marker around a 15-
mile radius.
Cleomedes states that the southern limit was determined by his
knowing that only on one day of the year did the sun’s rays penetrate to
the bottom of a well in Syene and this happened to be reasonably close to
24 degrees N. For the Alexandrian measurement he states that its angular
distance north from Syene was 7.2 degrees determined by a scaphe which is
device that comes in many forms for angular sun measure or time keeping.
This method too lacks the necessary precision.
A well illustrating the principle
A form of scaphe as a concave hemispherical dish
The very few, almost cryptic, statements attributed to Eratosthenes
regarding the dimensions of Egypt and the circumference of the world
contain a wealth of information regarding the manipulation of metrology.
It becomes apparent that the difference between Syene and Alexandria in
arabic and egpytian geodesy 349
terms of distance was not taken to be a literal straight line but was defined
by the direct north south line of latitudinal difference. He stated that the
distance was 5000 stadia and as he had established that this amounted to
7.2 degrees this would equate to a stadium length of 518.4ft assuming the
there are 360,000 feet of a yet to be determined value to the degree.
7.2 degrees is one fiftieth of the circumference, which by this
reckoning there are 250,000 stadia; but all authors claim there are 700 of
Eratosthenes’ stadia to the degree, which are therefore 252,000 stadia to
the total meridian. Cleomedes stated that Eratosthenes had corrected it
to be so in order that the division by the stades may be exactly expressed
by the sexigesimal 60th and 360th parts of the total. It is very easy to
reconcile these differences and establish that both solutions are correct.
The difference between 252,000 and 250,000 is a factor of 1.008 which is
common to all metrological systems and the fact that Eratosthenes gave
the rounded number of 5000 stadia to 7.2 degrees means that he used a
basic foot value 1.008 times longer. Had he used the Root value it would
have been 5040, not 5000, stadia between Syene and Alexandria and this
would give the circuit of the earth of 252,000.
Here we are using Root and Standard Canonical classifications of the
measures to make it clear what is going on by assuming a value for the degree
of 360,000 feet, then 700 five hundred feet stadia of the Root common
Greek foot of 1.0285714ft equals 360,000 but if the longer common Greek
foot of 1.0368ft is used the degree has the awkward of number 694.444
stadia to the degree. 7.2 degrees is then 5000 stadia. But the degree of
Egypt is of course considerably longer than 360000 feet and it is to the
statements of Strabo that we turn in order to clarify the precise length of
the geographic foot of Egypt. In terms of the very extensive geographic
distances in Egypt Strabo relied entirely on the work of Eratosthenes.
It is not necessary to go too deeply into Strabo’s detailed account of
the distances covered in his description of the course of the Nile. The
information is contained in his “Geography” book 17, chapters one to four
where he describes the meandering course of the Nile from Meroe in the
south at about 13.5 degrees to the Mediterranean at the delta, 31.5 degrees.
Just as a great deal of information was deduced from the terse statements
of Eratosthenes, in the same way the writings of Strabo encapsulate into
a single concise statement the precise length of the Egyptian geographic
350 john neal collected works
foot and degree.
Strabo states several times that the length of Egypt in a straight
line from the latitude of Syene to the Egyptian sea is 5300 stadia, and there
you have it. 7.5 degrees for this distance using Eratosthenes stadium (700
to the degree) equals 5250 stadia, and this of course, would be the literal
length using the geographic foot of Egypt. Strabo with his 5300 stadia is
therefore using the Root stadia of 514.2857ft and the difference between
this and 5250 stadia is 1.00952381. This number is the unit fraction 106 to
105 which if expressed in English feet, and multiplied by 360000 equals a
degree length of 363428.5714ft: and this was taken to be the mean degree of
Egypt. These figures will be confirmed very exactly by several cross-references
with both the Egyptian statements as to this derived length and the values
preserved in the monuments.
Just as these conclusions have been reached from a very small
database, so it is with the Egyptian statements as to the dimensions of the
land of Egypt; they were equally curt and equally informative. The paucity
of detail given by the Greeks and the Egyptians clarify rather than hamper
the analysis.
There is a vast amount of literature commenting on Eratosthenes
findings, one author in particular has been singled out for the usefulness
of his information and this is Gyula Priskin who has written extensively
on ancient Egyptian geodetic practise. He is regularly published in
Discussions in Egyptology and in Göttinger Miszellen. In 2006 he published
in the latter organ an article entitled “The Egyptian heritage in the ancient
measurements of the earth” he stated:
“The ancient Egyptians seem to have been, perhaps decidedly, very
laconic about the art of geodesy they possessed. Practically the only piece
of information they have made public in this regard, and the only one
that has made it to the present through the ravages of time, is a number
referring to a distance that strongly presupposes the knowledge of the
earth’s circumference. This singular textual tradition, when compared
with the actual extent of the land between its canonical boundaries,
suggests that the discipline of mathematical geography in Egypt was a
mixture of genuine scientific observations and a numbers game based
on the triangle of 3-4-5. The ultimate reasons for the introduction of this
arabic and egpytian geodesy 351
numbers game into the Egyptian view of the world, as of now, remain
elusive (they may have simply come from a cultic practice or may in fact
have originated from some metrological considerations), but the analysis
of the figures attributed to the length of the meridian by Hellenic scientists
has shown that the same numbers game was taken over and perpetuated
by the Greeks.”
As an author adhering to the orthodox view, references to cultic
practises and numbers games for example, it is quite remarkable that he
reached the solid conclusions that Egyptian geodesy implies an early
and accurate assessment of the length of the meridian degree. This is
particularly so because he states:
“From another perspective, this identity of the two figures also implies
that Eratosthenes took over an Egyptian tradition of converting different
units of measurement according to which one iteru equalled 50 stades.
Without advancing too far into the treacherous minefield of ancient
metrology, two pieces of evidence can be cited to back up this claim.”
(NOTE: This equals an iteru of 15,000 royal cubits.)
He refuses to confront the problems of the metrology, referring to
it as a treacherous minefield, yet in one way or another the whole subject
is about metrology and without an understanding of its structure the
questions of Egyptian geodesy can never be adequately understood.
Firstly, certain of the modules that were used in Egypt as itinerary
measures will be listed and identified then it will be explained how these
exact lengths were applied to the geographic distances in Egypt that are
recorded in the original manuscripts. Handily, Priskin has gathered a
goodly number of references to the extent of Egypt according to ancient
texts (for which he in turn acknowledges Schlott-Schwab, 1981).
The iteru mentioned in the text are an itinerary measurement that
is generally taken to be a length of 20000 royal cubits and certain of the
inscriptions referring to it state this to be the case. Iteru means “river” in
the Egyptian language and for this reason this has led the metrologically
challenged to assume that the distance referred to is the length of
the meandering course of the Nile between the Mediterranean and
352 john neal collected works arabic and egpytian geodesy 353

Elephantine, a distance of 7 ½ degrees (in terms of latitudinal measurement). schoinus of 20000 common Greek feet 20571.428 ft
The distance is stated to be 106 iteru and this is considerably longer than = 12000 royal cubits
the straight line measurement of 7 ½ degress. It is more properly exactly 10 iter of 25000 common Greek feet 25714.285ft
degrees. The absurdity of basing an itinerary measure on the meandering = 15000 royal cubits
course of a river is obvious. iter of 33333⅓ common Greek feet 34285.714ft
References to the iter and its 106 relationship to the length of = 20000 royal cubits
Egypt date back to the beginning of the second millennium recorded on a
building block from a temple of Amenemhet I and from the White Chapel Priskin does not venture into untried values of the royal cubit in his
of Senwosret I. It is also recorded on various inscribed cubit rods from analysis but sticks to two of the commonly accepted values, these were the
1600 BC onwards and finally is inscribed on a Greco-Roman temple at cubit identified by Petrie at the Great Pyramid of 523.7mm and a value
Edfu. Also from this period it appears on the damaged Tanis Geographical identified by Lepsius as 525mm (which is confirmed by the cubit below).
Papyrus, on a charred fragment “106 iteru” is clearly recognisable close to
references to distances in the Delta region.
Stecchini makes reference to three of these inscribed rods that were
discovered by Ludwig Borchardt at the Temple of Amun, each carried the Cubit rod from the tomb of Sennedjem, Thebes 525mm
same inscription that stated the overall length of Egypt was 106 iteru from
Bhedet at the apex of the Delta to Syene at the southern extremity; this However the cubit that gives best fit to the data is the rod of the Root
distance was split into two parts given as the distance from Bhedet to Pi- royal cubit of 12/7 feet = 1.714285ft or 522.5mm yet this cubit is equally as
Hapy (an island in the Nile) as 20 iteru and from Pi-Hapy to Syene as 86 common as the others and as widely dispersed.
iteru. It is lamentable that these rods were never tested as to their length.
(Borchardt, damn him, said that they were sacred objects and stated of
the Egyptians in general that one must positively exclude the possibility
that the ancients had measured by geographic degrees. And he called Cubit rod of Maya, Tutankhamen’s steward, Louvre, 523mm
Herodotus an idiot).
Stecchini referred to iter as atur (it is also called iterw, and in Ptolemaic
documents it is abbreviated to Ar). He correctly deduced that there was
another length of the iter at 15000 royal cubits and it is this length that
gives the precise solution to the 106 iteru length of Upper and Lower Cubit rod of Amenemipt, Museo Egizio Turin 522mm17
Egypt. (Once you have identified the correct module). This is perfectly
feasible, as very few references to the length carry the stipulation that the By calculation Petrie’s cubit differs from the rods of Amenemipt
iter should be 20000 cubits.
17 When measuring these objects it is only possible to be certain to the nearest
The principle modules for the division of Egypt are: whole millimetre therefore 522 and 523 must be considered as referring to the same
length; either being accurate to better than one in one thousand. The difference of
stade of 500 common Greek feet 514.2857ft the 440th part of a cubit amounts to about one and a quarter millimetres thereby
making the intended length within the millimetre quite easy to identify.
= 300 royal cubits
354 john neal collected works
and Maya as 441 to 440. The rod of Sennedjem differs from Amenemipt
and Maya as 176 to 175. What follows leaves little doubt that the cubit of
the Egyptian geographic assessments is the Root cubit of 12/7 English feet.
The identical lengths that were found in the tomb of Aperia confirm that
we are dealing with well-maintained standards, spanning a time scale of
perhaps millennia. (This smattering of evidence as to the fixed variations
could be confirmed with far, far more).
Two cubit rods from the tomb of Aperia at Saqqara
schist given as 523mm and wood given as 525mm.
The Egyptian surveys were centred on the Temple of Amun at Thebes
and it is the length of this degree that is the datum.
As was established through Strabo’s account of Eratosthenes
statements as to the stade used in the measurement; it enabled one to give
this particular degree as 363428.5714ft. This would be the degree centred
exactly 2/7ths of equator to pole and this is the precise location of the
Temple. In metres this is 110773, this is a little shorter than the degree
exactly at 26 degrees, which is given as 110779m (all figures from the tables
of Friedrich Robert Helmert who measured the degrees along the meridian of
Egypt in 1906).
Take 363428.5714 and multiply by 7.5 for the total degrees of
Upper and Lower Egypt, this equals 27275714.286ft. Divide this number
by 12/7 = 1590000 royal cubits, divide this number by 106 (the number of
iteru) = 15000 the number of cubits to the iter according to Stecchini.
It has not escaped notice that this solution is deficient in as much
that this particular degree, centred on 254/7th degrees must be too short to
be considered an average for the Egyptian degree. Only two degrees to the
south can be shorter but the 5 degrees to the north must be longer thereby
a shortfall is incurred of a little over 600 feet in the overall length of Egypt
arabic and egpytian geodesy 355
by using the Root 12/7ft cubit. If Petrie’s cubit of 1.7181818ft is used in
the calculation then there would be an excess in the region of 6000 feet
beyond 24 degrees to the south, and if Sennedjem’s cubit of 1.724ft is used
then the excess would be in the region of 15000 feet.
This 600ft shortfall is neatly written off by taking the longer iteru
of 20000 royal cubits, then the same multiplication process applied and
the total length of 106 iteru becomes 3634285.714ft which is exactly 10
degrees of this Theban degree. This thereby puts Thebes at, or very close
to, the centre of the overall length of Egypt in the broader sense. This
extension of Egypt proper to the south is very well documented. Egypt
had always held sway over this Nubian region, the presence of Abu Simbel
is testament to this and at 22 1/3 degrees N it is within the degree of the
106 iteru southern border at 21½ degrees.
It was necessary for Egypt to occupy this region as a defence
against the Meroitic people of the Sudan. Trade and pilgrimage were
permitted throughout the region because the inhabitants of Meroe also
worshipped Isis and the centre of her cult was the island of Philae exactly
on the Egyptian border at 24 degrees. During the Ptolemaic and Roman
eras this southerly land was so defined:
There is evidence that the Ptolemaic court adopted at this moment a
forward policy on the southern frontier. It evidently tried to establish against
the Ethiopian Pharaohs a permanent occupation of the reach of the Nile
above the first Cataract as far as the Second Cataract (Wady Halfa). If the
reach from Aswan to Derâr was known as the Dodekaschoinos, this longer
reach was called the Triakontaschoinos. A hieroglyphic inscription to be seen
on the rocks near the little village of Khartûm declares that the Thirty‑Ar-
reach belongs to Isis of Philae — just as other inscriptions assert this of the
Twelve‑Ar-reach. (“The House of Ptolemy” by E.  R.  Bevan published by
Methuen Publishing, London, 1927)
This passage makes it clear that these itinerary distances were
interchangeable in terminology Dodekaschoinos is clearly “Twelve-
schoinos” just as Triakontaschoinos is “Thirty-schoinos” they were the
names of these of these southern areas of Egyptian occupation. Yet clearly
they are references not to the 12000 cubit schoinos but to the 20000 cubit
356 john neal collected works
iter, here abbreviated by Bevan to “Ar” a form of atur.
If the 106 iteru of 20000 cubits takes the dimensions of Egypt
from Bhedet at the north of the Delta to ten degrees south then this
southern border would be at 21.5 degrees. This southern boundary would
be further extended by exactly 70000 cubits to the southern boundary of
the Triakontaschoinos.
Before these figures are explained it is worth projecting the 12000
cubit schoinos on the geography of Egypt, it appears to have significance
although there is no mention of it in ancient texts. If one takes 106
schoinoi x 12000 cubits x 12/7 = 2180571.42ft then this number is six times
363428.571ft, the Theban degree. Thus 106 schoinoi equals the six-degree
extent of Upper Egypt and is yet another cross-reference point for this
arabic and egpytian geodesy 357
exact number (this six degrees, or upper Egypt, was also referred to as the
Thebaid with Thebes close to its centre).
It is remarkably easy to explain what is going on with these
numbers thanks to Egyptian-Greek laconicism (rather than in spite of it).
First one has to consider these values from the Root perspective, as has
been previously described when analysing Arabic metrology.
The Root number of feet to the degree is 360000, the Root royal
Egyptian cubit is 1.714285ft therefore there are 210000 cubits to the degree
which is 14 iteru of 15000 cubits or 10.5 iteru of 20000 cubits. It is also 17.5
of the 12000 cubit schoinoi.
Therefore, if one multiplies these various degree divisions of Egypt
by these numbers, the six degrees of Lower Egypt at 17.5 schoinoi equals
105, the seven and a half degrees of Upper and Lower Egypt combined x
14 iteru equals 105 and the ten degree length of broader Egypt equals 105
iteru of 20000 royal cubits. In all cases this is 105 and not the 106 of the
Egyptian records.
Thus, the Egyptians, in common with the practise outlined in these
pages have reduced the modules to their Root then expressed the overall
distances in terms of this Root. The difference between the Root at the
latitude of Egypt and the expanded value from the Root to account for this
latitudinal increase is 105 to 106 which is 1.00952381 then this geographic
foot of Egypt equals a degree length of 363428.571ft. This is exactly as was
observed with the account of Eratosthenes according to Strabo, he knew
there were 700 stadia to the degree yet gave the figure 5300 stadia as the 7
½ degrees of Egypt which should be 5250 because he concluded that there
were 252000 stadia in the entire meridian circumference.
Obviously, the Greeks continued the Egyptian custom of expressing
the overall distance in Root numbers. This particular derivation of the
geographic foot is peculiar to Egypt. It is found nowhere else; whereas
other values of what is termed the “geographic foot” are found universally,
they are part of the canon.
This is strongly evidential to the proposition that the English foot is
the geographic base 1 or Root from which all other modules are propagated
by a progression of additional or subtractive unit fractions. An English
cubit is 1.5ft and plus its one seventh part it is the royal Egyptian cubit
and all the distances from the ancient texts are given in this value; just
358 john neal collected works
as the 500 common Greek feet of 514.2857ft, (Eratosthenes’ stadium), is
the 500 English foot stadium plus its one thirty-fifth part. A metrological
examination of the Pyramids of Giza gives exact numerical confirmation .
How the Geographic Knowledge
is Encoded in the Monuments
The pyramids of Giza are the most scrutinised buildings in history.
All three of them are built to the most important ratios in mathematics.
The first pyramid is built to the pi ratio and this ratio governs the modules
therein. The second pyramid is built to the 3, 4, 5 ratio of the primary
Pythagorean triangle which governs the modules therein and the third
pyramid is built to the phi ratio and the geometry of Egypt governs the
modules therein.
The Great Pyramid
The pi ratio is often found as a governing element in monumental
architecture. The proportions the Great Pyramid are unambiguously this
ratio in every respect yet the correct dimensions are never given, there are
inconsistencies in virtually every report that may be clarified as so:
The cubit used in the design is the 440th part greater than the Root
cubit that was used in their geography. It is 1.71818ft 18 recurring 440 of
which are the south base side of 756ft (230.4286m). This would be the
side of a square the perimeter of which if viewed as a circle would have a
radius of 280 cubits, which is the height of the pyramid. The height-radius
may also be viewed as 500 Roman feet of .9621818ft, in which case the base
perimeter is 3142.875ft Roman feet or 1000 x 22/7.
This exact length as previously stated: .9621818ft (29.327cm) is the basic
foot of the builders arsin of Ma’Ruf as mentioned and the length of the pied
de Hainault, twice this length was the cubit of Twente in Holland, it was
the foot of Kalenburg and Pomena in Germany among many others, widely
known throughout Europe at this precise length. It is the Root Roman foot
of .96ft plus its 440th part.
For a number of reasons the south side of the pyramid of 756ft
is regarded as the datum and a regular pyramid of these proportions is
arabic and egpytian geodesy 359
used to express the metrology. All modules found in the pyramid are of
the Standard classification, i.e. the 440th part greater than Root and it is
the south side that defines this exactly. The sides of the pyramid vary for
reasons that will be explained but had the designers wished to build it as a
perfect square this would not have been beyond their capabilities because
the 340ft length of the descending passage does not vary beyond a quarter
inch and the four corner sockets across diagonals of 325 metres are level to
within half an inch.
Instead, the sides were designed to be different lengths to impart
the differences in the length of the degrees of Egypt because the sides of
the pyramid varied by the same proportions as do the lengths of these
significant degrees. This data is totally lost if the lengths of the four sides
are lumped together and an average is taken. This is a truism of metrology
in general because differences in modules are deliberate and to average
them destroys the integrity of all of them.
It is unclear who first voiced the opinion that the pyramid had
geodetic associations but it was clearly Edmé Francoise Jomard who first
popularised the theory in our era around the year 1800. He noted that
the works of Strabo and Diadorus stated that the length of the pyramid
apothem equalled a Greek 600ft stadium and his somewhat crude
measurements of the pyramid roughly confirmed this. Allegedly through
his readings of the classical authors, he was able to compute that 480
times the base side of the pyramid was intended to equal the length of one
degree on the meridian. Jomard was ridiculed by his contemporaries for
forwarding such notions but stubbornly, similar concepts in many shapes
and forms continued to flourish into modern times. Each increasingly
accurate survey of the Great Pyramid from Jomard’s time of the early
nineteenth century until T H Cole’s fully definitive report of 1925 - has
produced its crop of geodetic hypotheses.
Although based upon shaky data, it was Jomard’s original claim
that 480 times the base side of the pyramid equalled a degree of longitude
that led to the solution of the geodetic aspect of the pyramid’s construction
because 480 times the 756ft datum side of the pyramid equals 362880ft.
As well as being a “canonical” number and the factorial of 9, it is the
length of the least degree, at about 10 degrees, that achieves “geographic”
terminology in its constituent feet. It is 360000 times the Greek foot of
360 john neal collected works
1.008ft and all other modules that integrally fit this degree are increased
from “Root” by this fraction. For example there are 210000 royal cubits of
1.728ft, which is the Root cubit of 12/7 ft multiplied by 1.008. The folding
rod of Kha at Turin at 527mm exemplifies the value of this cubit.
The folding rod of the architect Kha. A slender wooden rod about 16mm square it
shows signs ofextensive use. Hinged at the centre with copper, it has seven equal palm
divisions one of which is further divided into four digits. Its overall length is 1.728ft.
There is also a votive cubit that belonged to Kha, similar in its elaborate
style to that of Amenemipt but sheathed in gold leaf. Unfortunately there
is now only a replica at Torino which was quite pointless to measure.
However, the value given by Lepsius is 524mm (Petrie’s cubit deduced
from the Great Pyramid is 523.7mm).
The gold leafed cubit foreground, the folding rod centre left with the funerary objects
from Kha’s tomb. It has 28 digits. Royal cubits are about equally divided by 24 or 28
It was the fact that this degree was deduced from the datum side of
arabic and egpytian geodesy 361
the pyramid being multiplied by 480 and giving a known value of a degree
that was vital to metrology -­- yet was deficient in relation to the length
of the degrees of Egypt and it was that fact which prompted the idea of
increasing the length of the multiplier. As the height Great Pyramid may
be exactly defined from the knowledge that the datum base side is 756
feet then at seven to eleven of this the height is 481.090909ft; therefore
if this number, not 480, is taken as the multiplier the equations work very
accurately to determine the degrees of Egypt.
From the data supplied by T H Cole as commissioned by Ludwig
Borchardt, these are the lengths of the sides and to the right the maximum
possible error:
South side 230.454m 10 mm. at the West end 30 mm.
at the East end
East side 230.391m 6 mm. at either end
West side 230.357m 30 mm. at either end
North side 230.253m 6 mm. at either end
These are the lengths of the degrees taken from each side multiplied
by 481.090909:
South side 110867m closest degree according Helmert
110861m at 31°
East side 110839m 110843m at 30°
West side 110822m 110826m at 29°
North side 110772m 110779m at 26°
Thus the sides of the pyramid multiplied by its height expressed in
English feet gives the length of very significant degrees of Egypt; the three
consecutive degrees at 29, 30 and 31 degrees have the pyramid at their
centre. However it is the degree that is derived from the shortest north
side that clinches this proposition, for in English feet the disclosed degree
at a little less than 26 degrees is the location of the Temple of Amun. The
above solution is correct to within one foot of the degree as established of
363428.57ft. This equates to Coles report of this north side of the pyramid
being accurate to within .6 of a millimetre of 230.253m.
362 john neal collected works
The degrees of Egypt according to the Pyramid dimensions
Neal “All Done With Mirrors” 2000
As long as one maintains the height of the pyramid at 481.090909
English feet then the multiplicand or base south side may be divided by
any module whatever to give the number of that selected module in the
length of the degree at 31°. This is a “numbers game” elevated to a magical
art.
As well as these obvious geodetic functions of the pyramid’s
proportions, its magnitude also preserves a wealth of purely metrological
data. It is known from the earliest of the Greek observations, from
arabic and egpytian geodesy 363
Agatharchides and Herodotus come positive statements as to the
dimensions and geometric functions that are built into it. Herodotus
claimed that the square on the height of the pyramid equals the area of the
triangular face and this is correct to within one part in 1300 or a shortfall
of about 13ft squared. This area he stated to be 8 plethron by which he
meant the Egyptian land unit termed aroura or khet which is 100 royal
cubits squared. However, this solution is not accurate to the royal cubit
but is accurate to the cubit of Nippur, 1.701ft, which was known to have
been used in Egypt on very good authority. Very clear examples of the use
of this cubit in Egypt will be included as an addendum to this text.
Stecchini claimed that the majority of the statements regarding the
mathematical nature of the Great Pyramid can be traced to one source,
Agatharchides of Cnidus. One of his reputed statements in particular is
very relevant to the metrology of the pyramid and this is that the otherwise
perfect pyramid was incomplete in that the pyramidion was missing. This
capstone, he stated, was of four cubits. This has always been assumed to
be four cubits in height but if he meant that each of the base sides was one
cubit then it would have a perimeter of four cubits.
This foot of 1.090909ft is exactly 441 in the height of the pyramid
and this is the fraction by which all of the Root measures are increased to
achieve the Standard classification which categorises all of the modules
in the pyramid (this is in addition to being the corrective fraction that
is added to the module of a circle diameter to give a rational perimeter
number). And further additionally it is the difference between the polar
and mean radii of the earth. This 441 fraction is epitomised in the cubit
364 john neal collected works
of the pyramid construction because if there are 440 cubits of 1.71818ft in
the base side of the pyramid, then there are 441 cubits of 1.714285ft which
is the Root cubit used in the geography of Egypt.
Much is to be learned from speculations upon the likely terminal
pyramidions of any pyramid and it is believed that this is a very ancient
pastime; whereby including or excluding the pyramidion from the total
height one may arrive at different solutions to mathematical problems.
As well as the 441 fraction having great significance in the design of the
pyramid, the other fraction that governs the variations in the modules,
that of 176/175, is also unquestionably built into the Great Pyramid. This
fraction also maintains integers in diameter and perimeter measurements
when the diameter is not divisible by seven.
There are examples of this practise from all over the ancient world
where four or its multiples are a diameter measure. Circular logs having a
diameter of four cubits according to Mesopotamian texts were reckoned
to be 12.5 cubits in circumference. Famously, Vitruvius gave the same
solution in stating that a cart wheel of 4 feet diameter would move 12½
feet in one revolution and this implies that 3.125 or 25/8 was accepted as
the pi ratio. It is equally obvious that the more accurate 22/7 was known
and commonly used. Therefore the only reason for the use of 3.125 was to
maintain integers. The solution to this anomaly is that 3.125 is 175 to 176
of 3.142857 and it works as follows:
arabic and egpytian geodesy 365
Any of the different feet (there are several) that relate as 24 to 25
would have the above solution. This means that the accuracy of pi = 22/7
is unchanged.
This ratio is built into the pyramid by virtue of the fact that the distance
vertically beneath the baseline of the pyramid to base of the sockets is the
175th part of the visible height. This means that the distance between the
outer corners of the sockets on the south side is exactly 176 to 175 of the
visible corner to corner south side of 756ft at 760.32ft. It was Petrie who
had made this examination and fortunately had it confirmed by surveyors
from a detachment of the Royal Engineers who were at Giza at that time,
it was accurate to within half an inch.
The illustration by Petrie demonstrates that at the corners the arris
formed by the intersection of two planes of the pyramid faces plunges
through the pavement to bed into the socket that is cut into the bedrock.
The casing stones sit upon the pavement but the pavement is then
chamfered to abut the corner stones. The thickness of the pavement to
the base of the sockets is another known module in as much that it is a
variant of the Spanish vara at 2.7490909ft which is exactly 441 to 440
of the vara of Castile of 2.742857ft that we have seen repeatedly in these
pages (7500 of them is both and a Spanish maritime league and a Greek/
Egyptian schoinus). 176 x 2.740909 equals 500 Roman feet of .96768ft,
and at 483.84ft it is the height of the pyramid from the socket base to the
apex. Thus the two fractions that that govern the variations of metrology,
441 and 176, are deliberately built into the Great pyramid as fundamental
to the architect’s design.
366 john neal collected works arabic and egpytian geodesy 367

The above illustration shows how a double pyramidion may have shown
the two fractions 440 and 175 at the scale of the Great Pyramid. The greater
pyramidion would have a base circumference of 10 royal cubits of 1.728ft. This
is the length of the folding rod of the architect, Kha, (176 to 175 of Petrie’s cubit)

The picture to left is a 19th century engraving

showing how the base casing stones were
preserved by the rubble from the destruction
above. It also shows the remains of the
pavement and its relative thickness. All of
the rubble had to be cleared away by Ludwig
Borchardt prior to Cole’s definitive survey in 1925 and subsequent surveys of the same
data have not bettered Cole’ findings. The picture above is the civil engineer Inglis, in
the SW corner socket, 1865. Such devices were common in pyramid construction the
above illustration is of pyramidions from south Saqqara
Following the established convention of regarding the sides of the
pyramid relating to the lengths of meridian degrees when multiplied either Other pyramidions are known to be designed as regular metrological
by 480 or 481.090909 -- then this extended socket length times 480 equals scale models of the whole. One particularly well-preserved specimen is
364953.6ft and this is the degree calculated from the mean radius of the that of Amenemhet III from the Black pyramid at Dashur, now in the
earth of 20901888ft. This number divided by 432000 equals 483.84ft or Cairo Museum.
exactly the extended height from the socket base to apex of the Pyramid.
This precise number, 432000, has often been speculated to be the scale of
the Great Pyramid to the earth but the above explanation as to exactly how
this is the case may be regarded as the only proof of the equation.

Black pyramidion of Amenemhet III, Cairo Museum

368 john neal collected works
  Polar: 99.9954% Mean: 99.9984% Equatorial: 99.99992%
The illustration is taken from De Pyramidenbezirk des Konigs
Amenemhet III in Dahschur by Dieter Arnold.
Arnold, who excavated at the site in 1975, gives the height of the
pyramidion as 1.31m and the base as 1.875m. Extensive soundings around
the ruinous base of the complete pyramid determined that the base side
was 105m; if that is the case then the base of the pyramidion at 1.875m is
exactly the 56th part of the whole. This pyramid has a base length 200 royal
cubits. If the cubits were of the Root Canonical classification at 1.72408ft
(525.5mm) then the base would be 105.1m
Because of the fact that all of the geographic degrees vary in length;
they lengthen as one travels north from the equator to the pole then the
extent of this quadrant is not the most ideal basis on which found a logical
measurement system. All researchers have instead selected various earth
radii to rationalise the data and the evidence suggests that this convention
had been followed by whoever designed the Great Pyramid.
There are three principal radii that define the geoid, the polar, the
mean and the equatorial and the table below lists first the modern estimates
then the ancient values that would have to have been known during the
age of pyramid building. The mere fact that there are many different values
given for these present day acceptances of the earth’s dimensions (whatever
tables one consults) betrays the fact that no central canon exists; whereas
the ancient canon may be exactly interpreted through hundreds of cross
references taken from the structure of metrology.
arabic and egpytian geodesy 369
Modern dimensions:
Polar: 20855422ft Mean: 20902215ft Equatorial: 20925602ft
(6356.73 km) (6371 km) (6378.1 km)
Dimensions from ancient metrology
Polar: 20854491ft Mean: 20901888ft Equatorial: 20925586ft
(6356.44 k) (6370.9 k) (6378.11 k)
Levels of correspondence as percentages:
Ratios:
880 882 883
The above listed ratios most graphically illustrate the precise
positioning of the Great Pyramid to be a literal extension of the mean
radius of the earth. The difference between the polar and mean radii of
the earth is established at 440 to 441 and the difference between the mean
and the equatorial is exactly half of this fraction at 882 to 883. Thus the
quadrant arc is divided neatly into three with the distance from 0° at the
equator to the pyramid at 30° being one and from the pyramid to the pole
at 90° being two.
880
Latitude of the Great Pyramid at the tip of the
mean earth radius whose length is 432,000 times
the pyramid height om the base of the sockets
20,854,491
882
20,901,888
20,925,586 883
370 john neal collected works
The Second Pyramid
There is no denying the importance of the royal cubit in Egyptian
bureaucracy, ritual and day-to-day practical usage. It may have been the
principal and dominant standard but it was far from the only unit that
was in common use. The only other standard that is universally accepted
by the majority of archaeologists to have been used is the directly related
common cubit at six to seven of the royal. All of the other easily identifiable
units are not so much ignored; they are not even considered or recognised
and as for the acceptance of the length of the royal cubit only those from
“approved” sources are acknowledged.
Invariably, when reading anything about the dimensions of the
Giza plateau and the monuments thereon, the writers attempt to explain
the magnitudes in terms of the royal cubit of 1.71818ft, the GP cubit. The
reason that the sublime metrological design of the second pyramid has
escaped any logical explanation is because the royal Egyptian is not the
cubit of its design. It is our old friend the Russian cubit, or rather the foot
of the Russian cubit, (root of the black cubit of Al Mamun) which teases
out the architect’s scheme.
As with monuments elsewhere the module of the pyramid design
is directly related to the proportions of the 3, 4, 5 basic Pythagorean
triangle for this is the motif that it conforms to and these numbers reveal
the module. The best reference for the dimensions is still the survey
conducted by Flinders Petrie in 1880-82 which was published in 1883 as
“The Pyramids and Temples of Giza”. Petrie, in common with British
surveyors of the time, habitually recorded his results in inches, which must
be converted, to feet in order to be properly understood.
As with the great Pyramid the south side is longest, the north side
shortest and the east and west sides very similar in Length.
The results in feet:
South side 706.408
West side 706.292
East side 706.267
North side 705.992
arabic and egpytian geodesy 371
This data must be approached in two ways, firstly these magnitudes
must be divided by the closest integer in English feet and this will reveal
the classification fraction of the module.
706.408 divide 700 = 1.009154ft;
706.292 divide 700 = 1.00898ft;
706.267 divide 700 = 1.00893ft;
705.992 divide 700 = 1.00856ft.
It is very obvious that these are all forms of geographic feet and if
these results are multiplied by 360000 they will indicate specific degrees.
All of the degrees that are indicated are south of Egypt proper (that is
lower and upper Egypt combined).
The south side represents the degree at 23 degrees, exactly upon
Egypt’s southern border. The east and west sides are too close in value
to indicate separate degrees but would both fall within 21 degrees which
is the southern boundary of overall Egypt and the southern extent of
the Triakontaschoinus. Once again, as with the Great Pyramid, it is the
northern side that indicates a degree much further south; it is the degree
at 17 degrees, close to the capital of Meroe where the only other pyramid-
building people in Africa lived and these were essentially Egyptian.
The site of the city of Meroë is marked by more than
two hundred pyramids in three groups
With the disintegration of the New Kingdom soon after 1000BC
the Egyptian governor Kashta (the Kushite) became king of the Meriotic
372 john neal collected works
Napatan league and eventually conquered the whole of Egypt founding
the 25th Dynasty. The southernmost temple of Amun was at Napata and in
1916 George Reisner began excavations at this temple where he unearthed
from the inner sanctum an ornate omphalos, shown below.
The omphalos of the Temple of Amun, Napata. Six degrees south of the
Temple of Amun at Thebes (Photograph courtesy of Robert Temple)
These omphaloses are found throughout the world and always
have associations with both surveying and divinatory purposes. It is
therefore significant that of all the geographic feet that appear to have
been incorporated into the first and second pyramid designs, the north
side of the second pyramid indicates the latitude of this temple which was
the administrative centre of the southern extent of Egyptian domination.
This is particularly thought-provoking in view of the fact that the second
pyramid of Giza was constructed two millennia before the modern
acceptance of Egyptian ascendancy this region.
These geographic feet are not, however, the module of the pyramid
design they merely indicate the sympathetic degree which will be the same
classification as that of the design module and this must be obtained from
the proportions of the 3 4 5 triangle that it conforms to. As the base is
formed from two back-to-back adjacents of the Pythagorean triangle then
the number 6 governs the module interpretation of the base. Take the
south side of 706.408ft then this must be divided by 600 to find the foot
module; it is 1.177346ft and this is immediately recognisable as a form of
Russian foot, it is Root 1.166666 x 1.009154ft, the geographic number of
arabic and egpytian geodesy 373
23 degrees as established. Similarly the height must be divided by 400 to
reach the same solution and the apothem by 500.
The diagram illustrates how the module is related to the proportion
One cannot be as certain of the precise interpretation of the
second pyramid as one can be regarding the GP; it has not had the same
scrutiny. However, among his other accomplishments Petrie was probably
the finest surveyor of his age and his conclusions would be difficult to
better. It is the height of the pyramid that is the most thought provoking
and Petrie calculated this from the angles of slope by using various data
that varied within fine parameters:
“For the angle of slope of the faces, the direct measures by goniometer and
level on the granite in situ gave 53º 12’ ± 2’, but by measurement from plumb
line 53º 2’; the block has been slightly shifted, but the top surface only varies 1’
from level, being high on the outer edge. By goniometer measures of [p. 98] 24
blocks, both of granite and limestone, lying around the Pyramid, the mean is
53º 14’ ± 5’; and though this involves the assumption of horizontal courses, if
this be taken as the angle of slope, yet it agrees so closely with the casing in that
probably 53º 10’ ± 4’ will be the best statement.
Hence the height will be 5,664 ± 13 inches.”
The Pyramids and Temples of Giza, Ch 8 section 67
Much is to be gleaned from this very specific statement that reinforces
the geodetic conclusions that were drawn from the lengths of the sides.
Reduced to feet 5664ins is 472 feet and because the height represents the
374 john neal collected works
4 of the Pythagorean triangle then this number must be divided by 400.
It equals 1.18 therefore this value must be divided by the Root 1.166666 in
order to classify the module:
1.18 divided by 1.166666 = 1.011428 which is 99.998% of the “Root
Geographic” (the Vicentine or Palladian foot). Therefore Petrie’s estimate
is within a quarter inch of this projected height taken from the structure
of metrology. Thus for the first time in this pyramid we see a value that
is common to all branches of metrology, that is, it indicates a “canonical”
degree, that of the Aegean, and not a value that is peculiar to Egypt and
its environs. Furthermore, this is closely the length of a Coptic cubit rod
given by Lepsius in the appendix to “The Ancient Egyptian Cubit and its
Subdivisions.” (he gives it as 539mm abd the calculated length is 539.51mm)
This height was the one Petrie thought the most likely as the median
of his data but the alternatives that this data suggests are equally thought
provoking in their significance.
The difference of plus or minus 13 inches allowable from the varied
data is virtually plus or minus the 440th part of the overall height which
would be 12.87314ins. Thus the maximum possible height the 440th part
greater would be the Standard Geographic value of the Russian foot which
is the basis of the black cubit and the cubit of the Rawda nilometer at
1.18272ft and the minimum possible would be the foot the 441 part less
than the median which yields a foot governed by the south side of the
pyramid which is calculated as 1.009154ft and the foot from the height is
1.0091676 which is an accuracy of 99.9986% or about a tenth of an inch in
the base side. (These geographic feet would have to be multiplied by 7/6
to produce the pyramid foot).
Although the figures are correct one cannot rule out the possibility
of coincidence to produce these height related geographic degrees. That
is, it cannot be categorically stated to be so as one is able to do with the
Great Pyramid although it would be typical of the Egyptian numerical/
architectural design; a proposition that is helped along by the fact that
12.8731 inches is exactly the Root Canonical Persepolitan foot. If this were
regarded as the pyramidion height then the height would be one foot (16
digits), the base would be one cubit (24 digits) and the apothem would be
one remen (20 digits). Four palms, six palms and 5 palms.
arabic and egpytian geodesy 375
As a footnote to this interpretation of the metrology of the
second pyramid a couple of examples of these modules of the Russian foot
and the Persepolitan foot will be given as proof of their use elsewhere in
Egypt. Firstly the constructional Russian foot taken from “Architecture
and mathematics in ancient Egypt” by Corinna Rossi (p 124):
“Lauffray suggested that the chapel of Hakoris at Karnak could
have been laid out according to a module of 54cm, a value which comes too
close to the usual cubit to be a completely different unit of measurement. Four
rods 53.8cm long were found in the Eighteenth Dynasty tomb of Sennefer,
together with a standard rod of 52.7cm (Bernard Bruyere, “Rapport sur les
fouilles de Dier el Medineh” (1927) Cairo: IFAQ, 1928, pp 55-6 and pl 8.”
( Jean Lauffray supervised the restoration of Karnak project after 1967.
He and .M. el-Khachab wrote: La Chapelle d’Achôris à Karnak 1995).
Both of these “Mesopotamian” measures 1.066666 and 1.166666
are apparent in the second pyramid and the proposed pyramidion would
look as so:
20 digits
5 palms
16 digits
4 palms
12 digits 3 palms
Each of these dimensions is unity, the height is one foot the base one cubit and the
hypotenuse one remen. All in terms of the Persepolitan foot to a scale of 1:441 of the
whole.
The foot of the cubit of 53.8 cm is the very value that has been deduced
above as the basis of the north side of the pyramid to within half an inch in
706ft. 53.8cm would be classified as a Standard Canonical Russian cubit
and has been repeatedly found when dealing with the black cubit of Al
Mamun, it is 175 to 176 of the black cubit.
376 john neal collected works
The proposed terminal pyramidion foot, the Persepolitan foot,
also has respectable evidence of its application elsewhere in Egypt. One
strong reference to it comes from a review article penned by John Legon.
Legon is refreshingly pragmatic, instinctively sceptical and well versed
in Egyptian metrology; he is a credible source. The article, published in
Discussions in Egyptology 30 (1994), 87-100, was by Elke Roik, author of
Das Längenmaßsystem im alten Ägypten.
Roik had found clear evidence of a unit other than the royal cubit
in the intervals between the measuring points marked in red on the walls
of the tomb of Tausret. She goes on to claim in Legon’s words:
“Dr Roik has developed the theory that this linear measure was in general
use in Egypt from the earliest times down to the Roman period. Unlike the
royal cubit, it had a length of 65 cm which was divided dyadically into eight
parts each of about 8.125 cm, and thus made use of the method of division
familiar to the Egyptians through the Horus-eye fractions of the corn measure.”
In common with Egyptologists worldwide, he attempts to explain
the unit in terms of the royal cubit and that the length is 5 to 4 of the
royal cubit18. This would be another unit entirely, namely a two foot cubit
of the Belgic whereas the 65cm module is clearly a two feet cubit of the
Persepolitan feet. This was widely used in temple design in ancient Persia
and Mesopotamia19 identified by Petrie as a cubit of 1.6ft, this is the short
cubit and the 65cm cubit is the long cubit (two feet of 1.066666ft) and
2.13333ft is 65.02cm.
Legon does not deny the existence of such a cubit but hotly
challenges Roik’s claims that it was used throughout Egypt as commonly
as the royal cubit. His commentary ends up by being a full frontal attack
upon Roik’s findings, just the sort of hatchet job that he excels in and very
good for provoking debate.
18 Legon’s claim that that the ratio of 5 to 4 links the unit of 65cm proposed
by Roike with the royal cubit would imply an acceptace by Legon of a royal cubit of
52cm. This is not the case and a full explanation of this 52cm module is given below.
19 Along with the Ubaid cubit of 72cm, two Russian feet.
arabic and egpytian geodesy 377
These precise values are the ones previously referred to as being
preserved on modern steel rules as the construction modules marked
at 16 and 19.2 English inches, which are the remen and the cubit at the
Persepolitan values; 16 to 15 of the English.
The Third Pyramid
The third pyramid posed greater problems in obtaining accurate
measurements than the other pyramids. This is because it was never
completed and no pavement was laid around it. Petrie explained that
the intended base could be deduced by the first course being vertical
to the slope above, and this is what the pavement would have abutted.
Additionally the lower courses of casing were of granite that had been
left in the rough thereby leaving no finished corners to straightforwardly
measure.
The picture below shows the finished masonry around the
entrance and the rough granite around. The limestone sheathing above
the granite courses has been stripped away; Herodotus stated that the
casing was half granite and half limestone. Clarke and Engelbach in their
Ancient Egyptian Masonry testify to the methods of finishing the faces of
pyramids and temples in situ that were all built with the face side masonry
left in the rough for protection during transport and erection.
The rough granite on the lower courses with the finished face only around the
entrance, centre bottom.
378 john neal collected works
Petrie’s plan of the profile, shown below, explains how he deduced
the finished slopes. He could only give the lengths of three of the sides of
this pyramid, having failed after several attempts to reach the north-west
corner, he stated:
“The N. end of the W. side could not be reached, after several attempts;
and hence the lack of knowing the length of the N. or azimuth of the W. side.”
It is not hard to imagine the difficulties involved with all of the debris
of centuries surrounding the pyramids at that time; detritus that was not
cleared away for another forty years after Petrie’s examinations and even
then, only around the Great Pyramid.
He gave the lengths of the sides in inches with the foot conversion to
the right as so:
East side 4149.2 345.76666ft
West side 4153.9 346.15833ft
South side 4157.8 346.48333ft
This pyramid is designed in royal Egyptian cubits, once again at
values that are not found beyond the geographic influence of Egypt, the
identification would be as so:
East side 345.76666ft = 200 royal cubits of 1.72833ft
arabic and egpytian geodesy 379
At 210,000 royal cubits to the degree = 363,054.3ft
or 110,658.8m = 16° (Meroe)
West side 346.15833ft = 200 royal cubits of 1.7308ft
= 363,466ft or 110,784m
The average length of the degree of upper and lower Egypt
degree at 26°
South side 346.48333ft = 200 royal cubits of 1.7324ft
= 363,807ft or 110,888m.
Exactly the degree at 31.5° the northernmost point of Egypt.
Because of the consistency of the modules in each of the pyramids
rendering significant Egyptian geographic associations it is difficult to
believe that this was not part of the architect’s design and the dictating
influence of the cubit lengths.
As to the height of this pyramid many factors relating to angle of
slope taken from numerous data had to be taken into account so there is
no real certainty of the correctness. Having said that, it must also be stated
that Petrie was a superb surveyor — as was Cole after him — and it is his
first statement that is the most likely to be correct. He stated of the height:
“Hence the height of the Pyramid would have been 2564 ± 15; or 2580.8
± 2.0 by the granite courses.”
Therefore, 2564ins = 213.66666ft and if this number is multiplied
by the Φ ratio of 1.618034 it is 345.72ft and Petrie gave 345.7666ft as the
east side of the pyramid, thus within very fine parameters, the pyramid
expresses the phi ratio.
Because the phi ratio is near impossible to apply precisely to
a sensibly related module as 1 to 1.618, then whatever close values one
obtains must remain conjectural. For example, take the English foot as 1
then 1.618 would be the value of the Persepolitan cubit at the latitude of
about 37 degrees, the latitude of Sparta in Greece and the area of Mosul
in Iraq where according to al Biruni, al Mamun had conducted his survey.
This must be discounted as musing; there is no real significance in these
380 john neal collected works arabic and egpytian geodesy 381

facts. For this cubit to have significance as a known unit its closest would
have to be the Root Geographic Persepolitan cubit of 1.618334ft which is
perhaps too inexact to forward as the phi ratio.
It would seem that Φ is difficult to incorporate into the basic
framework of measuring units that are firmly fixed. It seems more to
govern the organic world; the world of growth and form of infinite variety
— in which realm it reigns supreme. It is the life that comes into the ratios
for pi and the Pythagoras triangle that are the universal building blocks
of the inorganic. It is the phi ratio that governs the construction of the
pentagon-gram and they propagate quite spontaneously. It is derived
from square root five plus one divided by two and this number is beyond
metrological identity. Interestingly (square root five plus one) squared is
10.47213 and this number is one third of 31.4164 or ten times true pi to
an accuracy of 99.998%. Once again, this may not be significant, merely
interesting. Thus we are able to identify the royal cubits of the sides of the
pyramid but cannot deduce the height into any metrological scheme, but
the ratio is clear.
pyramid, thereby defining the northern apothem to be this shorter length
than the datum south apothem. It is also a length that may be calculated
from the mean of shortest and longest sides of the pyramid.
The clincher here is that if the previously hypothesised value of one
Persepolitan cubit at the Root Geographic value is used as the value of
phi in this calculation it yields the precise solution of 611.7317 as the
reduced apothem length: Root Persepolitan cubit 1.6ft x Root geographic
1.011461224 ((175 x176) squared) = 1.6183379. this number multiplied by
half pyramid base of 378ft = 611.7317ft.
Therefore if the Great Pyramid is designed to express the phi ratio
then this proposed Persepolitan cubit does equal a legitimate expression
as this ratio.
The unified diagram

Addendum to the above statement

Some pertinent facts regarding the above statements on the phi ratio
have subsequently come to light. These facts are worthy of inclusion
because they connect the phi ratio that was tentatively forwarded as to its
being expressed as a metrological unit in terms of the English foot as base
one, with the phi ratio as expressed in the Great Pyramid as half the base
to the apothem.
In no uncertain terms half the base side of of the Great Pyramid is
taken from the datum side of 756ft, therefore the datum apothem is a
length of height 481.090909ft to half base 378ft; this gives apothem length
of 611.82715ft.
According to certain texts of Greek authors the length of the apothem
up to the pyramidion is considered to be one stadium. Therefore one
stadium of 608.256ft plus the 175th part equals an apothem of 611.7317ft. These three important ratios that are manifested in the geometry of
Assuming that the height must remain fixed then half the base side would the three pyramids, pi, the Pythagorean triangle and phi may be unified by
reduce from datum 378ft to 377.845ft and to better than 99.99% accuracy a single geometrical construction as above.
this would fall between the lengths of the east and west sides of the
382 john neal collected works arabic and egpytian geodesy 383

First draw the Pythagorean triangle 3, 4, 5, known from ancient times

as “the building block of the universe” and square the base 3.

Then draw the corresponding reversed triangle on the opposite

side of the square. The base of the whole will be 4 + 3 + 4 = 11.

Square this base of 11 and the distance between the centres of the
two squares (1½ + 5½) is 7.

If the line of 7 units is regarded as the radius of a circle and the circle
is drawn, it has the same perimeter as the large square, namely 44, giving
the pi ratio as 22/7.

Then draw a triangle with its apex at the centre of the small square and The earth were it a sphere would be 7920 miles diameter
its base formed by a line from the centre of the opposite sides of the large and the the moon is 2160 miles diameter. Exactly.
square; then this is the profile of the Great Pyramid.
The phi ratio is then spontaneously generated as the ratio between the
half base of the triangle and its hypotenuse (pyramid apothem).

This is an elegant way to draw the circle squared from scratch. Another frequently used Egyptian module
However, this was not the method of its discovery in modern times. John
Michell originally found it during his researches and preparation for his In penultimate conclusion to this article one other module — that
“City of Revelation” which would have been around 1971. of the Nippur elle should be noted with appropriate examples of its use in
He realised that in the detailed plan of the Temple as described Egypt.
both in the Revelation to St John and in Ezekiel’s vision was the blueprint, These are the core values of the Nippur elle beginning in the
fractal-fashion, which expands into the divine city, then to the dimensions emboldened box as the Root cubit of 1.125ft (9/8 English feet) x 1.5 as
of both the Earth and Moon. Michell had drawn the tangent circles within 1.6875ft.
the squares that were representative in their proportions to the Earth and
the Moon. It was only later that he realised that a line drawn from corner Nippur Root Reciprocal Root Root Canonical Root Geographic
to corner of the squares formed the hypotenuse, 5, of the Pythagorean Cubit 1.677912 1.687500 1.697143 1.706841
triangle. Consequently, this then became the obvious departure point for (51.143cm) (51.435cm) (51.729cm) (52.024cm)
the ensuing geometry. But that’s another story.
Standard Reciprocal Standard Standard Canonical Standard Geog.
1.681725 1.691335 1.701000 1.710720
(51.259cm) (51.552cm) (51.846cm) (52.143cm)
384 john neal collected works arabic and egpytian geodesy 385

The cubit on the copper bar of Nippur, from whence comes the term
Nippur elle, is taken to be the above Standard Canonical value at 51.846cm
and this precise value at 1.701ft was noted by Berriman to be the dimensions
of the great hall at Karnak.

Doorway of Khnumhotep’s tomb at Beni Hasan is stated to be 7 cubits high, while

its measured height is 142.7 inches and 7 Root Canonical Nippur cubits is 142.56ins.
This at 1.697ft is the 440th part less than the Nippur elle and the 100 cubits of the side
of the pyramid aroura.

Captain H. G. Lyons also reported these Nippur cubit lengths, among

others, on the nilometers of Philffi, Elephantine, Edfu, Philae and Luxor at
values between 51 and 52cm.
The great hypostyle hall at Karnak is a double square of 100 cubits of 1.701ft.
(Historical Metrology, Berriman, 1953)

At this same value it was pointed out earlier that the ancient reckoning
of the square on the height being equal to the area of one face of the Great
Pyramid and that this area is eight Egyptian acres of 100 cubits squared,
has a far more accurate solution in terms of this cubit than the royal cubit.
The cubit of the 440th part less than the above is shown below in
Howard Carter’s beautiful drawing as the height of the seat given as 51.7cm
and the height of the backrest is two cubits of the 175th part longer that
would be 52cm.

The cubit now known as the Nippur elle was frequently identified
in The Cadastral Survey of Egypt, Captain H. G. Lyons, F.R.S.1908 as in
the doorway shown below: A gilded throne taken from Tutankhamen’s tomb, seat height
and back rest respectively one and two of the Nippur cubits
386 john neal collected works
Additionally: Review Article by John Legon. “Measurement in
Ancient Egypt” – Reproduced from “Discussions in Egyptology” 30 (1994),
87-100):
“In the Cairo Museum, according to Roik (p.24), there are three
functional six-part wooden rods each 52 cm in length” (The bronze cubit
below has one face of 52 cm divided into six palms).
The clearest possible evidence for the use of this “Nippur” cubit in
Egypt is the square bronze rod of the Museo Egizio, Torino. The three
scales give the Root Reciprocal, the Root and the Root Geographic values
for this cubit measured at 51.1, 51.4 and 52.0 cm, the calculated values are as
so:
51.142712 51.434956 52.024464
A 16mm square bronze rod. With hieroglyphs on one side the other three sides are
divided into three different scales that are variants of the same measure. This is not
a royal Egyptian cubit but is a variant of the so-called “Nippur elle” whose cubit is
given as 518.4mm.
The full length cubit is 520mm divided into six distinct palms each of four digits. The
arabic and egpytian geodesy 387
shortest scale is of 511mm with 12 distinct divisions each subdivided into six, the final
12th shows each of the lesser divisions divided into fives; 360 of which would be the
cubit length. This smallest division is therefore 1.4194mm. The median of the three
scales at 514mm is very interesting because most unusually it is divided into 27 equal
digits, coincidence or not, 16 of these digits is exactly the English foot. Therefore 27
divided by 16 is 1.6875 threreby giving the length of the cubit in English feet whatever
your language!
The bronze rod of Turin as portrayed by Richard Lepsius in “The Ancient Egyptian
Cubit and its Subdivision” Berlin Royal Academy, 1865.
The median of the scales is at the top, it has 27 subdivisions each of a
16th part (digit) of the English foot. The second scale is the least, at 511mm,
and has 12 subdivisions. The third is the full length rod of 520mm with
the conventional 24 subdivisions grouped into 6 four-digit palms. The
varying subdivisions are of little importance evidentially, we learn the
most from the overall scale differences.
Lepsius, largely because of the uniqueness of this rod believed that
it was a forgery but subsequent researchers are unanimous in affirming it
to be a genuine ancient Egyptian artefact.
In point of fact this cubit rod is the most important that has ever
been discovered in Egypt because it categorically reveals the scheme of
metrology exactly as it has been described in these pages. It is the median
of the scales with the odd number of 27 digits that gives the solution
because the English foot is shown to be the basic Root from which all
else is extrapolated. One simply divides the number 27 by 16 (the number
of digits in a foot) and the answer is given as 1.6875 and this is the length
of the cubit expressed in English feet (Root); this solution works in any
language. The lesser scale is less as 175 to 176 (Root Reciprocal) and the
greater scale of the rod is greater by twice this fraction at (176/175) squared
(Root Geographic).
Many more modules were used in ancient Egypt than those that we
have dealt with here, this is true of all nations, a whole range of values
388 john neal collected works arabic and egpytian geodesy 389

were used by the artisans apart from the bureaucratic national standard. The most striking piece of evidence linking this name with the
However, this is not to belittle the paramount importance of the royal reverence in which the royal cubit was held is from a tomb inscription; it
cubit to the Egyptians. reads:

Conclusions

Large numbers of cubit rods, the best possible evidence, survive from
ancient Egypt in the form of funerary goods from the tombs. This implies
that the architects and engineers were of the highest social ranks in order
to have a tomb at all. Architects, engineers, physicians, astronomers and
scribes who were called “Hardenonaptai” were selected from the nobility
(the Roman equivalent of the term would be gromatici or agrimensores).
The Greeks and probably the scientific representatives of many
nations are known to have studied in Egypt from early times and this would
be the method by which the knowledge was disseminated. Weakening
with dilution over long ages.
Amenemipt, whose name we have frequently encountered is more
title than name and was applied over the years to more than one individual.
It means measurer of the temple of Amun, the -ipt or -apt suffix means
measurer. Two blue glazed ushabtis circa 1000 BC were offered for sale at
Bonhams carrying the inscription:
“Prophet of Amen-Re, king of the gods, Master of the Mysteries, chief of
the draughtsmen of the temple of Amun, Amenemipt.” That just about says it all. “The royalty give peace to the gods, lords
It is remarkably obvious that the pursuit of the Hardenonaptai was of the royal cubit” and “Steward of the chambers of the temple of the
rather more than a job. Due to the economical nature of what they boundaries of the two lands both North and South parts”. (Oddly, the
revealed it was certainly an esoteric brotherhood, as we have seen, they inscription reads more sensibly backwards, heiroglyphic texts may be
publish the results but not the methodology and this why so little has composed in either direction).
percolated down from its extraordinarily ancient beginnings. The identical system, units and methods used by the Egyptians were
What are missing from the tombs are their theodolites and other used the world over and a good example of the fluidity and essential
surveying instruments, which they must have possessed. The reasons for simplicity of the system is a quotation by Edward Wright from his “Certaine
this must remain conjectural; a palpable air of mystery surrounds the whole Errors in Navigation” published in 1599, over a hundred years before the
subject. The most inexplicable of which is the very existence of the system first truly definitive survey of modern times had been accomplished. He
of measurement, because that was firmly in place before any monument in said of the earth: “…;it containeth in the greatest circle 6,300 Spanish leagues.”
Egypt, or anywhere else for that matter, had left the drawing board. Then: “each one containeth 4000 pases, each pase of 5 foote.”
390 john neal collected works
The interesting part of this statement is that the Spanish maritime
league was originally 7500 varas therefore 22,500 Iberian feet or 4500
Iberian paces, yet Wright is dividing the league in terms of the common
Greek foot at 20000 to the league, the pace that he mentions would be the
100th part of Eratosthenes stadium. The sexagesimal element is introduced
by virtue of the fact that this league is also the 12000 royal cubit (or 1800
royal Egyptian feet) schoinus. Further to this, the Spanish vara of three
Iberian feet is also the step of 2 ½ Sumerian feet and this would make
18750 Sumerian feet or 3750 paces to the league (this Sumerian foot would
be 1.09714ft, the 175th part greater than the Sumerian foot of 1.090909ft
at the Great Pyramid). Obviously, these values have been preserved from
prehistory almost to the present day by the artisans, probably through the
means of these comparisons.
The values used for these feet and this league would be determined by
the degree of latitude and this could be accomplished by a simple mnemonic.
The Spanish, in common with the Greeks and Egyptians, expressed the
league at its Root value because the statute determining the league stated
that the maritime league be composed of 7500 varas of Castile, and at
2.742851ft x 7500 x 17.5 this equals 360000ft. Then these numbers at the
latitude of England for example would have to be multiplied by 1.01376,
which would make the degree 364953.6ft and this is the degree calculated
from the mean earth radius. It was the vara of Burgos, or Castile, that was
adopted as the national standard by a proclamation of Philip II in 1568 and
he defined the maritime league in the same statute.
By these means, and by using modules of the utmost convenience
that are themselves harmonic proportions of the human body, they could
express similar and easy to understand harmonics in any expression at all;
as above from navigation, then road making to the construction of the
monuments and dwellings and codifying the dimensions of the earth. All
who have studied metrology in depth reach similar conclusions.
The man who rediscovered the vital framework and most succinctly
expressed the essential nature and structure of metrology was John
Michell. His views contain the explanation as to how the Egyptians came
to possess such knowledge that enabled their accomplishments in the field
of geodesy and architecture, but not how the system originated. Taken
from his 1981 book “Ancient Metrology” these observations continued on
arabic and egpytian geodesy 391
from the evidence that he had presented of an ancient global survey:
“Yet there is a mystery about the ancient civilization, how and whence
it originated and how it became so universally established, which grows
deeper the more one investigates the remarkable science, based on a subtle
code of number and proportion, that supported it. For there is no question
here of a gradual development of knowledge by human endeavours down
the ages, but of quite the reverse process. The system of interlinked measures,
numeration and geodetic standards was evidently the product of a single
source or inventor, appearing as if ready-made in its most complete form at
some very remote period, leaving its mark in the monuments and culture of
virtually the entire ancient world, and then slowly dissolving until, by the
beginning of the Christian era, its surviving traditions were studied by the
few initiated scholars only, who respected them as relics of the higher wisdom
of their ancestors.
No modern student of the ancient code of geodesy, here in part
reconstructed, can fail to be impressed by its cohesion. By means of this code
the earth’s principle dimensions were not only defined with scientific accuracy,
but they are related to each other proportionately by the number series which
develop from the values, expressed in terms of the English foot and mile, of the
ancient units of measure. And these number series which fit the dimensions of
our planet are the very same as those which were formerly used for measuring
many other classes of natural phenomena.”
Considering that this enlightened summation of the evidence was
written thirty years ago it is remarkable that so few people have been
inspired to investigate the subject. Obviously, the purely factual detail
that is the substance of this article bears witness to the correctness of John
Michell’s vision, it is high time that metrology passed into the realm of
required reading for any of the sciences. In the world of modern physics,
now that the myth of indivisible mechanical particles has been superseded
by the merely numerical abstracts of quantum, which is the dynamic
relationships of pure number, a fertile field is open for its propagation
with a view to ridding us of the conceits that form the substance of the
modern view of historical development.