Response: Tomb of Menna

Some things I thought about regarding the painting before the reading:

-Many of the people in the painting are holding what looks like a modern day ruler; with a dot on top. What could this be? Could it be something equivalent to a ruler in Egyptian society? Most people holding them do not seem to actually be making measurements. Could they have a different use?

-What is the long rope people are holding in the top panel? Why does there need to be so many people holding onto it? Could they not just have two people using it on either end of the rope? Are they measuring something, or using it for a different purpose? They seem to be near a field of wheat. Could they be making a measurement about the land?

-It seems like there is a group of people holding the same "rulers" and also writing something on papyrus in the lower panel. They seem to be sitting near what looks like a large pile of grain. Could they be trying to calculate the amount of grain present? What measurements with the "ruler" might they have made to help with their calculations?

Further questions I had after the reading:

-What's the origin of the two different types of cubit (royal vs. short)? Might multiple people have spread the concept of measuring from elbow to middle finger tip, but with different arm lengths, leading to divergent systems of measurement across Egypt? Or might multiple people have independently come up with similar systems that converged? (Think convergent vs. divergent evolution)

-I checked on my own arm, and I agree that 28 finger (widths) is roughly the length of my elbow to middle fingertip. However, my palm seems more like 5 or 6 finger widths than 4. What was the basis, then, for calling a seventh of a cubit a "palm"? Is my hand just weirdly shaped or are they considering a very specific part of the palm? Also, why did they choose a system that divides the cubit into sevenths as opposed to something like twelfths? (Ok, they probably didn't "choose" the system so much as naturally developed it over time. Dividing by twelfths, like in a foot, is nice for all of the base 6/12/60/360 reasons we've discussed before.)

One thing that surprised me:

-I was shocked to see the use of √2 in the measuring system for the remen! I would not consider using irrational numbers for a measurement system in the current day, since it would lead to a lot of long decimal expansions in measurement conversions. However, I can see the practicality of being able to double the area of a square (or, say, a plot of land for crops) using them. I think they're a very clever tool for this reason, and I could see how they would make more sense in a time when math was understood much more geometrically rather than just numerically.