Ancient Mesopotamian units of measurement

[3] In general however, length, volume, and mass are derived from a theoretical standard cube, called 'gur (also spelled kor in some literature)', filled with barley, wheat, water, or oil.

However, because of the different specific gravities of these substances combined with dual numerical bases (sexagesimal or decimal), multiple sizes of the gur-cube were used without consensus.

[citation needed] These coefficients are given as: One official government standard of measurement of the archaic system was the Cubit of Nippur (2650 BCE).

A major improvement came in 2150 BCE during the Akkadian Empire under the reign of Naram-Sin when the competing systems were unified by a single official standard, the royal gur-cube.

[4] The royal gur-cube (Cuneiform: LU2.GAL.GUR, 𒈚𒄥; Akkadian: šarru kurru) was a theoretical cuboid of water approximately 6 m × 6 m × 0.5 m from which all other units could be derived.

[3] Units of length are prefixed by the logogram DU (𒁺) a convention of the archaic period counting system from which it was evolved.

The Classical Mesopotamian system formed the basis for Elamite, Hebrew, Urartian, Hurrian, Hittite, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Arabic, and Islamic metrologies.

[11] The Classical Mesopotamian System also has a proportional relationship, by virtue of standardized commerce, to Bronze Age Harappan and Egyptian metrologies.