Page:Palestine Exploration Fund - Quarterly Statement for 1894.djvu/87

Rh herbs, including shepherd's purse. Honey and pepper occur in the same connection, and salt fish wrapped in paper are noticed (Yom Tob, iv, 5); finally, cheese is often noticed, as well as milk, and the tunny fish and herring, with assafœtida (Abodah Zara, ii, 5) and crushed beans (Taharoth, iii, 1). Olives were pickled in salt (Maaseroth, iv, 3), and corn was eaten in the fields (Maaseroth, iv, 5). Egyptian beer (Pesakhim, iii, 1), beer from Media, and various wines are noted with other eatables, including flesh, game, poultry, eggs, fruits, vegetables, and fish, as will be further noted in speaking of the fauna and flora of the country. 

In this connection a few words must be said as to the Jewish cubit; for the Talmud gives us the only information on the subject, as annotated by Maimonides. There is no evidence that the Egyptian cubit was ever used by the Jews, and all attempts to deduce a measurement from tombs I have found, after measuring several hundreds of all ages, and in all parts of the country, to fail utterly, on account of the irregularity of their dimensions and the absence of right angles. From measurements of the Siloam tunnel, which is stated to have been 1,200 cubits long, we should obtain a cubit of about 17 inches; but in the times of which we now treat there was a cubit for measuring buildings of 48 barleycorns or 16 inches (three grains of Palestine barley measuring exactly one inch as found by repeated experiment), and a smaller cubit of 15 inches for vessels (Kelim, xvii, 9).

The measurements of the Temple stones, and the breadth of the pilasters which I found in the north-western corner of the Haram, together with their distance apart, and the measurements of the Galilean synagogues, all agree with the view that from the time of Christ to the second century A.D. the Jewish building cubit was 16 inches. Measurements in any other unit will, I believe, only apply to Greek or Byzantine work, and not to buildings which are certainly of Jewish origin. The measurement of the contents of eggs, as compared with the Jewish cubic measure, leads to the same result {see "Conder's Handbook to Bible," p. 57). The measurements of carefully-cut masonry and of well-built structures are evidently more reliable than those of irregularly hewn tombs. The Mishnah (Baba Bathra, vi, 8) gives model dimensions for tombs, and these I tried to apply in Palestine to the innumerable tombs which I measured, but after keeping a register for several years I found that no result could be obtained; whereas the Temple masonry and the synagogues gave a definite unit, which agreed with the statements of the Mishnah and of Maimonides.

Among the building materials noticed in the Mishnah we find wood and stone; there is also reference to chalk, gypsum, pitch, clay, and 