Area
The Israelite system of measuring area was fairly informal; the biblical text merely measures areas by describing how much land could be sown with a certain volume measure of seed, for example the amount of land able to be sown with 2 seahs of barley. The closest thing to a formal area unit was the yoke (Hebrew semed) (sometimes translated as acre), which referred to the amount of land that a pair of yoked oxen could plough in a single day; in Mesopotamia the standard estimate for this was 6480 square cubits, which is roughly equal to a third of an acre.
"Searah" (Hebrew ) - (pl. searot) hair, square 1/36 of a giris
"Adashah" (Hebrew ) - (pl. adashot) lentils, 1/9 of a giris
"Geris" (Hebrew ) - (pl. ) split bean, a circle with a diameter of about 20mm
"Amah al amah" (Hebrew ) - (pl. ) square cubit 2,304 cm2 to 3,318 cm2
"Beit rova" (Hebrew ) - (pl. ) space for sowing ΒΌ of a kav 24m2 to 34.56m2
"Beit seah" (Hebrew ) - (pl. ) space for sowing a seah 576 m2 to 829.4m2
"Beit kor" (Hebrew ) - (pl. ) space for sowing a kor 17,280m2 to 24,883m2
Read more about this topic: Biblical And Talmudic Units Of Measurement
Famous quotes containing the word area:
“Many women are reluctant to allow men to enter their domain. They don’t want men to acquire skills in what has traditionally been their area of competence and one of their main sources of self-esteem. So while they complain about the male’s unwillingness to share in domestic duties, they continually push the male out when he moves too confidently into what has previously been their exclusive world.”
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“If you meet a sectary, or a hostile partisan, never recognize the dividing lines; but meet on what common ground remains,—if only that the sun shines, and the rain rains for both; the area will widen very fast, and ere you know it the boundary mountains, on which the eye had fastened, have melted into air.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)