Ancient Egyptian units of measurement

The units of length seem to have originally been anthropic, based on various parts of the human body, although these were standardized using cubit rods, strands of rope, and official measures maintained at some temples.

Following Alexander the Great's conquest of Persia and subsequent death, his bodyguard and successor Ptolemy assumed control in Egypt, partially reforming its measurements, introducing some new units and hellenized names for others.

A scene in the tomb of Menna in Thebes shows surveyors measuring a plot of land using rope with knots tied at regular intervals.

[33] Minor units include the Middle Kingdom reed of 2 royal cubits,[j] the Ptolemaic xylon (Ancient Greek: ξύλον, lit.

For example, several problems in the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus give the area of rectangular plots of land in terms of setat and the ratio of the sides and then require the scribe to solve for their exact lengths.

[6] The setat was the basic unit of land measure and may originally have varied in size across Egypt's nomes.

The setat could be divided into strips one khet long and ten cubit wide (a kha).

[17] The Coptic shipa (ϣⲓⲡⲁ) was a land unit of uncertain value, possibly derived from Nubia.

[49] In 19th-century sources, the deben and qedet are often mistakenly transliterated as the uten and kat respectively, although this was corrected by the 20th century.

[51][52][53] The Egyptian civil calendar in place by Dynasty V[54] followed regnal eras resetting with the ascension of each new pharaoh.

[55] It was based on the solar year and apparently initiated during a heliacal rising of Sirius following a recognition of its rough correlation with the onset of the Nile flood.

The Egyptian months were originally simply numbered within each season[60] but, in later sources, they acquired names from the year's major festivals[61] and the three decans of each one were distinguished as "first", "middle", and "last".