Palm (unit)

Ancient Egypt of Turin, showing digit, palm, hand and fist lengths The Ancient Egyptian palm () has been reconstructed as about . The unit is attested as early as the reign of Djer, third pharaoh of the First Dynasty, and appears on many surviving cubit-rods. Scholars were long uncertain as to whether this was reckoned using the Egyptian or Babylonian cubit, but now believe it to have approximated the Egyptian "Greek cubit", giving a value for the palm of about . As in Egypt, the palm was divided into four digits ( follow the royal cubit in consisting of seven palms comprising about . This gives values for the palm between , with the Attic palm around . These various palms were divided into four digits (dáktylos) or two "middle phalanges" (kóndylos). and six, a cubit (pē̂khys). but is thought to have been officially . and early modern Europe—the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese ' and French '—were based upon the Roman "greater palm", reckoned as a hand's span or length. In Italy, the palm () varied regionally. The Genovese palm was about ; emerges that : - the ancient Venetian palm, five of which made a passo (pace), was equivalent to 0.3774 metres. - the Neapolitan palm = 0.26333670 metres (from 1480 to 1840) - the Neapolitan palm = 0.26455026455 metres (according to the law of 6 April 1840) which differs from previously cited palm measure equivalents in metres above. England The English palm, handbreadth, or handsbreadth is three inches (7.62cm) or, equivalently, four digits. The measurement was, however, not always well distinguished from the hand or handful, which became equal to four inches by a 1541 statute of Henry VIII. The palm was excluded from the British Weights and Measures Act 1824 that established the imperial system and is not a standard US customary unit. Elsewhere The Moroccan palm is given by Hutton as about . ==Notes==