The story of the five cubits, ancient and medieval, has shown that they were all derived, directly or indirectly, from the meridian measurement of the earth, some of them being probably instituted with the desire to make them representative of the relation of latitude and longitude.
I venture to say that every measure and weight used throughout the world has been developed from one of these cubits and thus, more or less directly, from the Egyptian meridian cubit. The Republican system of France is but a decimal imitation of the system based on the common Egyptian meridian cubit; its basis being the kilometre, 1/10000 of the quarter-meridian, instead of the Egyptian meridian mile, 1/(90 × 60) of the quarter-meridian.
There were some other cubits of minor importance; one of them is the Hashími cubit described in Chapter XVII.
COMPARATIVE LENGTHS OF THE FIVE ANCIENT CUBITS
Egyptian common cubit = 18·24 in.; its foot 2/3 = 12·16 in. „ royal „ = 20·64 „ „ 2/3 = 13·76 „ Great Assyrian „ = 25·26 „ „ 1/2 = 12·63 „ Beládi „ = 21·888 „ „ 1/2 = 10·944 „ Black „ = 20·28 „ „ 2/3 = 14·186 „
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It has been seen that throughout the ancient Eastern Kingdoms, from soon after 5000 B.C. to some centuries after our era, there was general unity in the system of linear measures. It will now be seen that there was similar unity in the system of weights and measures, all derived from some well-known linear standard cubed. In modern times this unity is much less apparent, but yet it can be traced, and it survives with little change in the great part of the world where the English system of weights and measures remains as an inheritance from the most ancient epochs of civilisation.
The 400 shekels of silver, currency of the merchants, that Abraham weighed to Ephron about 1900 years B.C. were probably of about the same weight as 400 half-crowns of the present day.
When Moses levied 100 talents and 1775 shekels, at the rate of half a shekel on each of the 603,550 men who were numbered (Exod. xxxviii.), the weight of the silver shekels can be precisely ascertained.
603550/2 = 301,775 shekels = 100 talents and 1775 shekels.
The Talent was the weight of an Egyptian royal cubic foot of water and was divided into 3000 shekels.