Ancient Sumer The oldest preserved measuring rod is a
copper-
alloy bar which was found by the
German Assyriologist Eckhard Unger while excavating at
Nippur (pictured below). The bar dates from c. 2650 BC. and Unger claimed it was used as a measurement standard. This irregularly formed and irregularly marked
graduated rule supposedly defined the
Sumerian cubit as about , although this does not agree with other evidence from the statues of
Gudea from the same region, five centuries later.
Ancient India Rulers made from ivory were in use by the Indus Valley Civilization in what today is Pakistan, and in some parts of Western India prior to 1500 BCE. Excavations at Lothal dating to 2400 BCE have yielded one such ruler calibrated to about Ian Whitelaw (2007) holds that 'The Mohenjo-Daro ruler is divided into units corresponding to and these are marked out in decimal subdivisions with remarkable accuracy—to within . Ancient bricks found throughout the region have dimensions that correspond to these units.' The sum total of ten graduations from Lothal is approximate to the angula in the Arthashastra.
Ancient East Asia Measuring rods for different purposes and sizes (construction, tailoring and land survey) have been found from China and elsewhere dating to the early 2nd millennium B.C.E.
Ancient Egypt defining the cubit as 52.3 cm, 1336–1327 BC (
Eighteenth Dynasty) Cubit-rods of wood or stone were used in Ancient Egypt. Fourteen of these were described and compared by Lepsius in 1865.
Flinders Petrie reported on a rod that shows a length of 520.5 mm, a few millimetres less than the Egyptian
cubit. A slate measuring rod was also found, divided into fractions of a Royal Cubit and dating to the time of
Akhenaten. Further cubit rods have been found in the tombs of officials. Two examples are known from the tomb of
Maya—the treasurer of the
18th dynasty pharaoh
Tutankhamun—in
Saqqara. Another was found in the tomb of Kha (
TT8) in
Thebes. These cubits are ca long and are divided into seven palms, each palm is divided into four fingers and the fingers are further subdivided. Another wooden cubit rod was found in Theban tomb
TT40 (Huy) bearing the throne name of Tutankhamun (Nebkheperure). Egyptian measuring rods also had marks for the
Remen measurement of approximately , used in construction of the
Pyramids.
Ancient Europe An
oak rod from the
Iron Age fortified settlement at
Borre Fen in
Denmark measured , with marks dividing it up into eight parts of , corresponding quite closely to half a
Doric Pous (a Greek foot). A
hazel measuring rod recovered from a
Bronze Age burial mound in
Borum Eshøj, East Jutland by
P. V. Glob in 1875 measured corresponding remarkably well to the traditional Danish foot. The
megalithic structures of
Great Britain has been hypothesized to have been built by a "
Megalithic Yard", though some authorities believe these structures have been measured out by pacing. Several tentative
Bronze Age bone fragments have been suggested as being parts of a measuring rod for this hypothetical measurement. The Roman measuring rod was 10 Roman feet long, and hence called a
decempeda,
Latin for 'ten-footer'. It was usually of square section capped at both ends by a metal shoe, and painted in alternating colours. Together with the
groma and
dioptra, the
decempeda formed the basic kit for the
Roman surveyors. The measuring rod is frequently found depicted in Roman art showing the surveyors at work. A shorter folding
yardstick one Roman foot long is known from excavations of a Roman fort in
Niederburg, Germany.
Middle Ages In the
Middle Ages, bars were used as standards of length when
surveying land. These bars often used a unit of measure called a
rod, of
length equal to 5.5
yards, 5.0292
metres, 16.5
feet, or of a
statute mile. A rod is the same length as a
perch or a
pole. In Old English, the term
lug is also used. The length is equal to the standardized length of the
ox goad used for teams of eight oxen by
medieval English ploughmen. The lengths of the perch (one rod unit) and
chain (four rods) were standardized in 1607 by
Edmund Gunter. The rod unit was still in use as a common unit of measurement in the mid-19th century, when
Henry David Thoreau used it frequently when describing distances in his work
Walden. ==In culture==