1174 weights and measures: Egypt Longer distances were probably measured by human activities Thus, for example, distances corresponding to modern miles were probably measured in a way that gauged the amount of ground a person could walk in a certain period of time Similarly, a unit of area probably was measured by the amount of ground, for instance, that a farmer could plow in a given period of time Ancient Africans undoubtedly used natural objects in the calculation of weights Indeed, the modern word grain, still used in weighing precious metals, reflects this ancient heritage Thus, any African culture probably would have developed a system that used small stones or quantities of seed, such as wheat seed, as a unit of weight Other objects included items such as bird claws, feathers, and, for large weights, elephants The ancient Egyptians used a system of weights called beqa weights to measure quantities of gold Examples have been found of beqa stones, which standardized weights, and some of these bear royal insignia Given Egypt’s dominance over much of northern Africa, this system for weighing precious metals and perhaps other commodities probably was imposed on trading kingdoms to Egypt’s south and west Such a system would have governed coinage, which ancient Africans would necessarily have had to accept Another natural object that played a role in ancient weights and measurements was water Thus, for example, a cubic foot of water represented a unit of weight called the talent, divisible into various units The Romans divided the talent into 60 minas, and various Mediterranean cultures that accepted the talent and the mina subdivided the mina into varying numbers of shekels These units were used by Syrians, Phoenicians (the ancestors of the African Carthaginians), and others, who carried them into Africa for purposes of trade and exchange EGYPT BY AMR KAMEL With the emergence of the centralized government in the Nile Valley as early as the Third Dynasty (ca 2649–ca 2575 b.c.e.), Egyptians formed accurate systems of weights and measures They developed methods for weighing grain, counting cattle, drawing up building projects, and sizing huge slabs of stone as well as issuing rations and materials to workmen and, above all, measuring the level of the annual Nile flood, on which the levying of taxes depended This system was valid throughout the whole country and remained active until the Greco-Roman Period (332 b.c.e.–395 c.e.), without real significant changes In general, the system that the Egyptians set up included three main subsystems that measured capacity, length, and weight In their literary texts ancient Egyptians frequently express quantities of products counted either by the piece or by a usual grouping of pieces, such as bunches of flowers, jars of wine, baskets of grapes, pots of honey, bundles of vegetables or flax, handfuls of reeds, and even pairs of geese Nonethe- less, ancient Egyptians used many other measures that are still obscure, such as the gsr, which was used only for milk, the g3t, which was used for cream, and the thab, which was used for salt Several pieces of textual evidence suggest that the measures used for official purposes, such as tax payments, were checked on a regular basis In conducting personal business Egyptians apparently preferred to use their own measures For example, Hekanakhte, a farmer of the Eleventh Dynasty (ca 2040–ca 1991), sent a messenger to his family in the delta to bring to him his own corn measure to use in measuring his grain in Thebes (modern-day Luxor) rather than using other local measures, which might not be wholly accurate The Egyptian capacity system was apparently grounded on the hnw for measuring fluids, now reckoned conventionally at around pint The Egyptians used multiples of 10 hnw to describe greater units: 40 hnw, 50 hnw, 100 hnw, 160 hnw, and 200 hnw The basic unit for cereals and other dry goods was the hekat, or bushel, of 4.3 quarts In the Old and Middle Kingdoms (ca 2575–ca 1640 b.c.e.) 10 ghar made the larger unit khar, or sack, of 11 gallons With the beginning of the New Kingdom (ca 1550–ca 1070 b.c.e.), the value of the khar was increased to equal 16 hekat, or 17.5 gallons This increase reflected not an economic crisis but rather the change of a decimal system to a new binary system, which made accounting easier These 16 hekat were later subdivided into units of hekat, 4.36 gallons each Smaller quantities were expressed as fractions of oipe, more precisely as one of the fractions of the geometric progression ẵ, ẳ (the former hekat), ⅛, 1⁄16, 1⁄32, and 1⁄64 The last quantity equaled 0.2 quarts and was divisible into ro, or parts, of 0.05 quarts each, reflecting the ancient division of the hekat into 80 and of the 4-hekat into 320 ro In the GrecoRoman Period the artabe, a Persian unit, played a major role, varying in size from 29 to 40 of the Greek choinix, a capacity unit of about 0.9 quarts For general length measurement the standard unit was the royal cubit The cubit represented the length of the forearm, from the elbow to the tip of the fi ngers, estimated conventionally at 18 inches The measure was composed of palms, (the hand’s width without the thumb), each consisting of fingers, ¾ inch each Apart from the cubit of palms, there were the small cubit of palms (about 17.64 inches), the remen of palms (14.7 inches), the djser of palms (11.76 inches), the great span of 3.5 palms (10.29 inches), the small span of palms (8.82 inches), the dopple or double palm (5.88 inches), and the fist of 1.5 palms or fingers (4.4 inches) Furthermore, Egyptians of the New Kingdom sometimes used a larger unit, called a nebi (“pole”); its length has been estimated at 1.25 cubits Land surveying required a longer unit than the cubit; thus, the ancient Egyptians seem to have used the khet, or “rod,” of 100 cubits (160 feet) as the base, since a land-measuring rope was 100 cubits long, stretched between two rods driven in the ground A larger unit, itrw, or “river,” measured