IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0033895.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An Ancient Relation between Units of Length and Volume Based on a Sphere

Author

Listed:
  • Elena Zapassky
  • Yuval Gadot
  • Israel Finkelstein
  • Itzhak Benenson

Abstract

The modern metric system defines units of volume based on the cube. We propose that the ancient Egyptian system of measuring capacity employed a similar concept, but used the sphere instead. When considered in ancient Egyptian units, the volume of a sphere, whose circumference is one royal cubit, equals half a hekat. Using the measurements of large sets of ancient containers as a database, the article demonstrates that this formula was characteristic of Egyptian and Egyptian-related pottery vessels but not of the ceramics of Mesopotamia, which had a different system of measuring length and volume units.

Suggested Citation

  • Elena Zapassky & Yuval Gadot & Israel Finkelstein & Itzhak Benenson, 2012. "An Ancient Relation between Units of Length and Volume Based on a Sphere," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(3), pages 1-6, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0033895
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0033895
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0033895
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0033895&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0033895?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0033895. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.