Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 69.164.70.243 (talk) at 03:47, 10 August 2005 (→Rktect References). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Is the U.S survey mile really the same as the geographical mile? Can we have cites, please?

No it isn't. That was my mistake, I corrected it now. AxelBoldt

Regarding the term statute mile, there is some confusion. In http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/dictM.html#mile and http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/Mile.html and http://chemistry.berkeley.edu/links/weights/equivalences.html it is defined as the international mile, while in http://www.jmtk.org/pages/library/man/jmu/JMU_DistanceConvert.htm and http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP811/appenB.html it is defined as the U.S. survey mile. The definite publication seems to be http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/230/235/appxc/appxc.htm from NIST which takes it to be the survey mile, so that's what I followed. AxelBoldt 17:04 Sep 17, 2002 (UTC)

Is that a US-specific definition? I've always assumed that "statute mile" here in the United Kingdom refers to the international mile, but as I'm not sure I'm not editing. Loganberry 00:03, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

data mile - used for radar calibration

Another site, http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/dictD.html, lists yet another definition for mile called a "data mile." How might a definiton for "data mile" be added without copying content from that page? I have no personal knowledge of the term, so can't help track down any source for the info. If accurate, it would be an interesting addition to the list

The mile-as-a-race seems relevant (it's what I think of when I think "mile", since we have SI now), but I'm not sure how to add it. Maybe I'll just add a link to 4_minute_mile at the end. Suggestions?

Content removed from the article

Rktect 8/9/05 User Egil is self admittedly not knowledgable about measures so should not be editing any articles related to them. His allegations regarding them constitute opinion rather than fact

He knows plenty about measurements. More importantly, his bullshit meter is finely tuned. Gene Nygaard 13:47, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Rktect 8/9/05

I have visited your page and seen Egil recruiting you to vandalize pages

so you can put that in your meter and measure it.

How about telling me what either he or you have against putting up references

you have reverted references on ancient weights and measures at least twice.

neither of you makes any attempt to list sources. I just listed some of

the standard references for the material below as footnote. If you want to

debate them we can get into it page by page, you bring your sources and

I'll go get mine.

and for what its worth, neither of you seems to want to list your expertise

in the subject, where you have an interest in standards of measure,

what you have studied, researched, read, investigated, what your source material is...

Rktect References

ArchaeologyColin Renfrew

A History of Seafaring George F Bass

The Ancient Near East William H McNeil and Jean W Sedlar

The Epic of GillgameshTranslated by Andrew George

The Ancient Near East James B. Pritchard

Bahrain through the Ages,

Shaika Haya Ali Al Khalifa and Michael Rice

Prehistory and Protohistory of the Arabian Peninsula

Dr. Muhammed Abdul Nayeem

Mesopotamia 10 The Sumerian Language Marie-Loise Thomsen

Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East" Michael Roaf

The Archaeology of Ancient China Chang

The Arabic Alphabet Nicholas Awde and Putros Samano

Gardiner Egyptian Grammar § 266 for names of Egyptian units

A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egytian Raymond O Faulkner

Ancient Egyptian Antonio Loprieno

Atlas of Ancient Egypt Baines and Ma'lek

Egypt's Making Michael Rice

Mathematics in the time of the Pharoahs, Gillings, chapter 20.

Ancient Egyptian Construction and Architecture

Somers Clarke and R. Englebach

Land Tenure in the Ramesside Period Salley L.D. Katary

In Search of the Indo Europeans J. P. Mallory

Rivers in the Desert Nelson Glueck

From Alpha to Omega Anne H. Groton

Our Latin Heritage Hines

The Ten Books on Architecture Vitruvius

The Geography Claudias Ptolemy

The History of Herodotus

Old Hittite Sentence Structure Silvia Luraghi

The Rise of the Greeks, Michael Grant

A Field Guide to Rock Art Symbols of the Greater Southwest

Alex Patterson

The Historical Roots of Elementary Mathematics

Lucas N. h. Bunt, Phillip S.Jones, Jack D. Bedient

The World of Measurements H Arthur Klein

Norman's Parrallel of the Orders of Architecture R. A. Cordingley

The Medieval Machine Jean Gimpel

The Atlas of the CrusadesHJohnathan Riley Smith

The Plantagenet Chronicles Elizabeth Hallam

Medieval Warfare H.W. Koch

You tie particular references to particular "facts", then we can consider whether or not those references really establish those facts (are they controverted by other referernces, are you just misinterpreting what is in the references you cite, etc.). That's the way it works, not just a list of every book you've ever looked at.

See Misplaced Pages:Cite sources for guidance. Gene Nygaard 18:33, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Rktect 23:41, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

The cited sources were interleaved with each point made

in the footnote to the ancient weights and measures page.

The content below, between the horizontal lines, has been removed from the article. There is already a section on history, and much of the content here seems to be not so relevant. More importantly, much of it seems to be original research by the author. The "Greek Milos" for instance, exists only in Misplaced Pages. Not good at all. Im fact, I really have not found any documentation of any of these claims. -- Egil 16:33, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

The Greeks derived their systemized standards of measure from a variety of sources including ancient Europe, Mesopotamia, Persia, Phoenicia and Egypt.

The credit for the first systemized collection and standardization probably goes to the empire builders of Mesopotamia and Egypt but the international commerce of the people who benefited by those great empires, the Greeks and Persians and the Romans who followed them is what really required the system be standardized over such vast areas.

The Mesopotamians measured their arable land in garden plots or sar and combined them into fields or iku of 100 cubits to a side. The Egyptians measured out the irrigation ditches that bounded their 3ht or fields as strips a cubit wide and 100 cubits long known as kht. Their st3t which was a field 100 cubits to a side became the Greek Aroura.

It is probable that farmers measured out the land their community allowed them to plow in return for digging the ditch by pacing it off and built up an enclosure for it with the stones they found in their furrows.

The community would give the fields out in pairs, one to be plowed and one to remain fallow which were planted in rotation. As beasts of burden were domesticated and yoked to the plow the amount of land under cultivation increased, and a third field was added to be planted in hay or fodder for the plow animal. The side of this cluster of fields became standardized at 350 cubits or one minute of march.

The Milos was based on a stadion equivalent to the Egyptian minute of march.

In Egypt the minute of march was 350 royal cubits long and an hour of march or itrw was 21,000 royal cubits long. The Greeks tell us they noted their measures of 6 plethrons and 8 stadions, were both the equivalent of the Apothem or slant side of the Great Pyramid.

Using unit measures like the Stadion, Stadium and Furlong which were originally used to lay out fields and only gradually became defined as areas like the Aroura or thousand square royal cubits, the empire builders measured out their roads.

The Greek Milos was originally 8 stadions or 600 Greek pous × 8 = 4800 pous. The Pous came in long, short, and median variations so depending on which one you used the number of pous would vary even as the length of the stadion and Milos remained the same. 600 Attic pous were equal to 625 Ionian pous but both stadions were 185 meters long.

The Romans standard pes was the Ionian pous of 296 mm so they made their stadium of 185 meters equal to 625 pes or 1000 passus and that made their Milliare 5000 pes.

What makes that a great system for empire builders is that the passus is now a measure of the pace at which the army moves. If such standards of measure are well suited to controlling the movements of armies with milestones related to how much distance can be covered in a set period of time they are equally servicable to the needs of commerce.

Just as the farmer can use the stone walls that border his field to help him restablish its boundaries after a flood, the community can establish its bounds in terms of how much land it needs to irrigate to sustain its population and the lugal or narmr (chief farmer) can determine how many men he needs to dig the irrigation system and how much land to alot to each oinkos, gene and phratre in return for their service. It's all very feudal.

The city state is based on a market or agora that serves a number of communities which are spaced about as far apart as a man can walk in a day driving a team of oxen pulling a cart.

changes to the English Mile

Rktect 8/9/05

This is from memory I'm at work and don't have Klein with me

but I believe the original Greek and Roman 1480 m Mile definitions

were in variance in England, Scotland and Wales before they were changed in England

by Athelstane, c 940, by William, c 1066, again by Henry VIII c 1547,

then by rule of thumb because of the confusion until Elizabeth c 1593 statute Mile.

Prior to Elizabeth I have found no evidence of a 304.8 mm foot and considerable

evidence from just prior to the staute that cartographers were still using a milliare.

c 1816 there were variations due to redefinition because the metric system was coming

on line on the continent so standards were being tightened resulting in the English Mile,

Survey Mile and American all being different at something like the sixth decimal,

then all were redefined again c 1878, reconciled c 1959, revised several times

since by changes in standards and metrification

I agree that this is largely incomprehensible and mostly irrelevant to this article. Unless any appropriate information is culled from it and cleaned up, and credited to reliable sources, I'll help you in reverting these repeated insertions. Gene Nygaard 14:57, 8 August 2005 (UTC)