Ancient Egypt
Knotted cords were used by rope stretchers, royal surveyors who measured out the sides of fields (Egyptian 3ht). The knotted cords (Egyptian ht) were 100 royal cubits in length with a knot every hayt or 10 royal cubits. The rope stretchers stretched the rope in order to take the sag out it and keep the measures uniform.
Since land in Egypt was measured in several different units there would have been knotted cords with the knots spaced in each unit including mh t3 or land cubits, remen royal cubits, rods or ha3t, generally the lengths in multiples of 100 units. The longest measured length listed in the Rhind papyrus is a circumference of about a Roman mile with a diameter of 9 khet.
Read more about this topic: Knotted Cord
Famous quotes containing the words ancient egypt, ancient and/or egypt:
“The metaphor of the king as the shepherd of his people goes back to ancient Egypt. Perhaps the use of this particular convention is due to the fact that, being stupid, affectionate, gregarious, and easily stampeded, the societies formed by sheep are most like human ones.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)
“Thus Satan talking to his neerest Mate
With Head up-lift above the wave, and Eyes
That sparkling blaz’d, his other Parts besides
Prone on the Flood, extended long and large
Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge
As whom the Fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr’d on Jove,
Briarios or Typhon, whom the Den
By ancient Tarsus held, or that Sea-beast
Leviathan,”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“Hieratic, slim and fair,
the tracery written here,
proclaims what’s left unsaid
in Egypt of her dead.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)