Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/393

 15 and On the Hebrew Cubit. 383 5 and 16 seem to have corresponded to the length of the ell measured only as far as the wrist ; this is denoted by an arm with a line drawn through the wrist to shew that the hand is cut off. Again, 13 of the above finger-breadths seem to have made up another kind of span, denoted by a span with an unknown mark, resembling a club, before it; and these first 13 finger- breadths are distinguished on two of the five faces of the standard by a different style of marking : and from this circumstance, and from the seemingly intentional irregularity of the lengths of the different finger-breadths, Thenius has, by a train of reasoning too long to be here repeated, arrived at the conclusion, that there was an older Egyptian ell, double in length of the last mentioned span, and containing 26 out of the 28 finger-breadths of the royal ell. The mean of four different computations gives the length of this older ell at -484289 metres or 15889 Eng. feet. This result Thenius shews to be remarkably confirmed by the dimensions of a building' of primitive antiquity to the east of the third Pyramid of Gizeh, which are all multiples approximately of the length "4833 metres, or 1*5856 Eng. feet. It would per- haps be the safer course to assume this as the length of the old Egyptian ell : and it would be extremely desirable that the build- ing should be more accurately measured, the French having only given the dimensions in metres to one place of decimals*. We cannot suppose that the Hebrew ell, which was increased by a hand-breadth at the time of the Babylonish captivity, was originally so large as the royal ell of Egypt : but we may with great probability consider it as identical with this older Egyp- tian ell. It seems therefore to have consisted of 2 spans, or 62 hand-breadths. The later Hebrew cubit was one hand-breadth greater : but we cannot tell whether it was divided into 7 2 of the old hand-breadths, or whether a new mode of division was adopted. It is probable that the later Hebrew cubit was the same as the Babylonian, and was adopted by the Jews during the captivity. With regard to the gomed, the etymological sense of the term is "cut off;" and when we recollect that the Egyptians had a measure derived from the length of the arm from the elbow to the wrist, and which was hieroglyphically represented by the ell cut off at the wrist, what can appear more natural than that
 * 'Description de l'Egypte/ V. p. 652 seqq.