As this book goes on show in the British Museum, it provides a useful reminder of how universal the inch was as a standard measure throughout the ancient world - this article is currently on the Internet:

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Despite its rather austere appearance, the Codex Sinaiticus is a treasure beyond price. Produced in the middle of the fourth century, the Codex is one of the two earliest Christian Bibles. (The other is the Codex Vaticanus in Rome.) Within its beautifully handwritten Greek text are the earliest surviving copy of the complete New Testament and the earliest and best copies of some of the Jewish scriptures, in the form that they were adopted by the Christian Church. As one of the earliest luxury codices to survive in large part, the Codex forms one of the most important landmarks in the history of the book.

What does the name mean?

The literal meaning of ‘Codex Sinaiticus’ is the Sinai Book.

‘Codex’ is a grand word for a book in the form that we know it today. In Latin ‘codex’, or ‘caudex’, once meant tree trunk. Thin wooden writing tablets were used in ancient Roman times as informal notebooks. When, during the second century, Christian texts began to be written down in books rather than on rolls, the name ‘codex’ was transferred to them. The pages that formed the earliest Christian books were made from the reeds of the papyrus plant. The pages of the Codex Sinaiticus are of prepared animal skin called parchment.

The word ‘Sinaiticus’ derives from the fact that the Codex was preserved for many centuries at St Catherine’s Monastery near the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt.

What is the Codex Sinaiticus?

The Codex is the remains of a huge hand-written book that contained all the Christian scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, together with two late first-century Christian texts, the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas. This book was made up of over 1,460 pages, each of which measured approximately 16 inches tall and 14 inches wide...

I don't really see the link between Tony's introduction and the text that he quoted. Am I missing something?

I notice that Tony is becoming more and more like xcole. His posts are becoming increasingly odd, and he rarely joins in the sensible debating.

TB
As this book goes on show in the British Museum, it provides a useful reminder of how universal the inch was as a standard measure throughout the ancient world - this article is currently on the Internet:


metre
Does it actually list all the variations of it? By my humble reckoning there must have been as many different inches as cities.

re (martin): "I don't see the link..."

REPLY: Did you reach as far as the end of my posting? - where you will have read: "This book was made up of over 1,460 pages, each of which measured approximately 16 inches tall and 14 inches wide...". Some authorities reported: 'exactly 16" x 14'.

My point, in terms, is that here in north Africa and Arabia, as copies of the New Testament were being copied and written, they used paper measured in even inches (as in 10" x 8"). I extrapolate from that that much of the ancient world used feet and inches for measuring, and not only for book sizes, whether in Europe or on other continents. There is a great deal of other evidence for that. This example of the Codex Sinaiticus is but one small example - and topical.

Sorry if it wasn't clearer

No-one is denying the history of imperial units - but just because they were used in the "ancient world" doesn't mean they are still appropriate today!

Tony Bennett wrote

<<
each of which measured approximately 16 inches tall and 14 inches wide
>>

To what tolerance? If the text was rewritten as

<<
each of which measured approximately 400mm tall and 350mm inches wide
>>
would it still be within the tolerance of the original measurement.

All the reports say the Sinaiticus pages are 16" x 14", no doubt a customary paper size in 4th century Egypt.

Here's a list of eighteenth-century British paper sizes, some of them very much still in use, so definitely not 'obsolete'. All sizes in inches, of course:

Antiquarian 52½ × 30½ [ 236 ]
Double elephant 39½ × 26½ Largest size in which writing paper was made. [ 140 ]
Atlas 33 × 26 [ 100 ]
Columbier 34½ × 23 [ 100 ]
Elephant 28 × 23 [ 72 ]
Imperial 29½ × 21½: Largest size in which writing paper was ordinarily made. [ 72 ]
Super royal 27¼ × 19¼ [ 52 ]
Royal 23½ × 19 [ 44 ]
Medium 22¼ × 17¼ [ 34 ]
Demy 19½ × 15¼: Smallest size in which drawing paper was made [ 24 ]
Extra large thick post 22¼ × 17¼ [ 25 ]
Extra large thin post 22¼ × 17¼ [ 18 ]
Extra large bank post 22¼ × 17¼ [ 13 ]
Large thick post 21 × 16½ [ 22 ]
Large middle post 21 × 16½ [ 19 ]
Large thin post 21 × 16½ [ 16 ]
Large bank post 21 × 16½ [ 11 ]
Extra thick post 19 × 15¼ [ 25 ]
Thick post 19 × 15¼ [ 20 ]
Middle post 19 × 15¼ [ 17 ]
Thin post 19 × 15¼ [ 14 ]
Bank post 19 × 15¼ [ 7 ]
Copy 20 × 16 [ 17 ]
Sheet-and-half foolscap 25½ × 13¼ [ 22 ]
Sheet-and-third foolscap 22 × 13¼ [ 18 ]
Extra thick foolscap 16½ × 13¼ [ 18 ]
Foolscap 16½ × 13¼ [ 15 ]
Pott 15½ × 12¼

Tony, in ancient Egypt or 18th century Britain people didn't email documents to each other and print them out so there wasn't the need to have standard sizes.

<<Here's a list of eighteenth-century British paper sizes, some of them very much still in use, so definitely not 'obsolete'. All sizes in inches, of course:>>

Is it Tony or Xcole??

re (Andy): "Tony, in ancient Egypt or 18th century Britain people didn't email documents to each other and print them out so there wasn't the need to have standard sizes"

REPLY: Are you sure about this? What is your source?

The only paper sizes one will find produced in the UK today are those based on ISO216 metric series.

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html



The old English sizes are mentioned on this page, but in the past tense. Thus they are no longer used and have been successfully replaced by the ISO216 metric series.

http://www.gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/units/print.htm

You're wrong about paper sizes on sale in Britain, Mr Jackson, a rare exception, no doubt, that proves the rule that you're always right.

Here, for example, are just some of the paper sizes sold today by Richards of Hull (see their website):

Double Quad Crown 60 x 40 inches
Post 19 x 15.5 inches
Double Post 31.5 x 19.5 inches
Medium 23 x 18 inches
Royal 25 x 20 inches
Super Royal 27.5 x 20.5 inches
Elephant 28 x 23 inches
Imperial 30 x 22 inches

Writing and Drawing Papers

Emperor 72 x 48"
Copy or Draft 20 x 16"
Antiquarian 53 x 31"
Demy 20 x 15.5"
Double Elephant 40 x 27"
Post 19 x 15"
Grand Eagle 42 x 28"
Pinched Post 18.5 x 14"
Atlas 34 x 26"
Foolscap 17 x 13.5"
Columbier 34.5 x 23.5"
Double Foolscap 26.5 x 16.5"
Imperial 30 x 22"
Double Post 30.5 x 19"
Elephant 28 x 33"
Double Large Post 33 x 21"
Cartridge 26 x 21"
Double Demy 31 x 20"
Super Royal 27 x 19"
Brief 16.5 x 13"
Royal 24 x 19"
Demi Royal 15 x 12.5"
Medium 22 x 17.5"
Large Post 21 x 16.5"

International Paper Sizes

Arranged in the proportion of 1:2, reducing on the diagonal for optical purposes.

A sizes trimmed - RA sizes for trim work - SRA for bleeds or extra trim
Subsidiary Series: B sizes are intermediate between any two adjacent sizes of the A series, used for posters, wall charts etc. C Series for envelopes particularly when it is necessary for one envelope to fit into another. Long sizes (DL) are derived by dividing A or B series into three, four or eight equal parts parallel with the shorter side.

4A
2A
A0
SRAO 900 x 1280mm (35.4 x 50.4")
A1
SRA1 640 x 900mm (25.2 x 35.4")
A2
SRA2 450 x 640mm (17.7 x 25.2")
A3
A4
A5
and down to A10 at 26 x 37mm

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Richards of Hull

Unit 1, Acorn Estate, Bontoft Avenue, Hull HU5 4HF, England

Tel [Snipped] Fax [Snipped]

Contact email to sales@richards.uk.com

If you look hard enough, you will find one shop that sells specialty items for those that want to pay more just to be different. But, these are not the norm.

I'm sure that every office, Every business, every home, every school, etc. uses the standard ISO "A" series, with A4 being the most common. Even in the US that has its own paper series, the copying machines are marked with the A series in mind. The enlarging reducing functions pre-programmed into the machines are designed to scale one A size to another perfectly.

As always you don't intend to, but you always manage to prove that metric is in common usage and imperial is out on the fringe.

http://www.earlham.edu/~seidti/iam/tc_codexs.html

An American site, so the measurements are given in inches, but the one dimension is 15 inches compared to Tony's 16 inches. Which is it, it can't be both?

Anyway, there is nothing in the codex that says the word inches. You found something from early 20-th century times giving a dimension and made a fool of yourself trying to claim the text actually proved the inch was used in ancient times. Seems like someone is really desperate to keep imperial from fading away.

<<
All the reports say the Sinaiticus pages are 16" x 14", no doubt a customary paper size in 4th century Egypt.
>>

Some the paper (papyrus?) manufacturers in Ancient Egypy used to guilotine their paper to exactly 14 inches x 16 inches> I find this hard to believe.

Wikipeadia give the following note about Ancient Egyptian measures:
<<
Unit Measures
Egyptian measures are systematic to this standard but
on actual measuring rods and artifacts may vary &#8776; +/- 1 mm per cubit
1 finger, db: = 18¾ mm
1 palm, šsp := 4 db = 75 mm
1 hand, drt := 5 db = 93¾ mm
1 fist, amm := 6 db = 112½ mm
1 span, spd := 12 db = 225 mm
1 foot, bw := 16 db = 300 mm
1 remen, rmn := 20 db = 375 mm
1 ordinary cubit, mh := 6 šsp = 450 mm
1 royal cubit, mh := 7 šsp = 525 mm
1 nibw := 8 šsp = 600 mm
1 double remen := 2 rmn = 750 mm
1 rod, h3yt := 10 mh (royal) = 5.25 m
1 ht, ht n nhw := 10 h3yt = 52.5 m
1 minute of march := 350 mh (royal) = 183.75 m
1 hour of march, atur, itrw := 21,000 mh (royal) &#8776; 11 km
>>

I tried to convert 14 inches and 16 inches to a round number of Egyptian fingers, palms, hands, fists, spans etc, but did not come yup with any tound numbers.

Tony, somebody has been telling you porkies.

This fascinating article about Algernon Berriman's and Francis Penrose's work on the length of the Egyptian cubit is at:
www.secretacademy.com/pages/algernonberriman.htm

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Algernon Berriman



Berriman, an engineer, published his book, Historical Metrology, in 1953. He was inspired to write it by the fact that in May 1951, the Departmental Committee on Weights and Measures Legislation published a report recommending the abolition of the imperial standards in favour of the complete adoption of the Metric System. He realised that a heritage of great antiquity was to disappear from daily life.

His interest in the matter may have stopped there but for the chance reading that a royal Egyptian cubit may be expressed as 20.6265 inches. He recognised this number as the radius of a circle of which the perimeter would be 129.6 inches, this led him to believe that the English inch had geometrical significance as a sexagesimal division of the circle. Inspired, he continued on to study the weights and measures systems of antiquity and reached many conclusions about these systems that the majority of other serious researchers had inevitably arrived at. That is, the linear units have a geodetic appearance, in as much as they seemed to be devised from the lengths of the meridian degree and from the length of the polar axis. He quoted Jomard as being the first to arrive at this conclusion around 1800, and that Sir C M Watson, in 1915, in his book Babylonian Measures of Length, had also commented upon the geodetic appearance of the Greek linear scale. (One Greek foot being the 360,000th part of the meridian degree).

Many others, not quoted by Berriman, have reached the same conclusion, the Architect, Francis Penrose, who measured the Parthenon in the 1880s, made the same remark regarding the Greek foot. According to Stecchini, the fact that the earth had been accurately surveyed in antiquity was not only taken for granted by those interested members of the French Academy of Sciences during the Nineteenth Century, it was a fundamental premise. So neglected a subject had ancient metrology become, that by the time Berriman wrote his book his conclusions of a geodetic origin for these ancient measures was mooted in the manner of a new discovery. The concluding sentence in his preface is the question: "Was the earth measured in remote antiquity"?

Unfortunately, although he must have been well aware of the variations in values that are accepted as standard expression of the measures, he tried to relate everything to a single value. As did Alexander Thom with the Megalithic Yard, and Stecchini with his definitive values of the Roman foot and Egyptian cubits. No attempt was made to explain these differences and the fundamental unity of the systems as a whole completely eluded him, although he knew it was so. When a measure is exactly identified its integrated nature with other values is clearly visible. The equation that first inspired him, that of the 129.6 inches of the perimeter which would yield a royal cubit radius, was obtained by using true pi. Had he divided this number by 22/7, as was done by tradition, then his value for the royal Egyptian cubit would have been exactly right, at 1.71818ft it is the value identified by Petrie at Giza. Instead, he believed this cubit to be 1.78873ft, close enough, but the numerical aspect of metrology is completely ruined, and all subsequent values are mere approximations. Although his general conclusions were largely correct, his work inspired no further developments to the study, the errors outweighed the facts. In spite of his inexactitudes, his work is often quoted as authoritative, which underscores the lack of knowledge about the subject in general.

On further investigation, I found this in Wikipaedia:

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Codex Sinaiticus (London, Brit. Libr., Add. 43725; Gregory-Aland no. à (Aleph) or 01) is a complete, 4th century uncial manuscript of the New Testament. It also contains substantial portions of the Septuagint. Written between 330-350, it is believed to be one of the original 50 copies of the scriptures commisioned by Roman Emperor Constantine after his conversion to Christianity. Along with Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most valuable manuscripts for Textual criticism of the Greek New Testament, as well as the Septuagint.

A portion of the Codex Sinaiticus, containing Esther 2:3-8.Codex Sinaiticus was found by Constantin von Tischendorf on his third visit to the Monastery of Saint Catherine, on Mount Sinai in Egypt, in 1859. The first two trips had yielded parts of the Old Testament, some from a rubbish bin...
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From this account, it is very probable that the paper size was determined by Roman measurements in use at the time, which certainly included the inch.

I concede to martin that the inch was never in common use in Egyptian metrology. However, as he notes and as all other authorities agree, the Egyptian system used a finger, or 'digit' of 3/4 inch, a foot of 16 digits, and a cubit of 28 digits, in addition to other measurements based mainly on the human arm, hand and finger as well as the foot.

These constitute powerful evidence for my original point - the universality of measurements based on the human body, like the cubit, foot, inch, hand, digit etc. The absence of the inch in Egyptian metrology appears to be one of the few exceptions that proves the rule.

It's another reminder that we are replacing a system of measurements based partly on the human body with scientific, ivory-tower, non-human measurements

Seeing that the metric system didn't come into existence until the 1790s, I wouldn't expect the size to be in millimetres. But I'd bet the real size isn't an exact number of inches either, just stated as so in pre-metric British 20th century times for convenience of description. Since the inch did not exist then, and even if it did, its size would be different then the 25.4 mm version used today.

If I called it 350 mm x 400 mm, I could claim that was metric from ancient times because I used rounded numbers.

Like all imperial units, the names persist but they have either multiple meanings or totally different meanings from the past.

Oooh, I must put a record on.....

Wikipedia is generally written by people who have obsessions with particular topics. What are the odds that Wikipedia's measurement articles were written by someone who posts on these boards?

Bud,

I would say very low. The ones on historical measurements apepar to have been written by historians.

Martin, I would say that the articles were originally written by historians elsewhere, and copied by someone else into Wikipedia. However, remember that you do not have to be qualified in order to edit Wikipedia, so it is not a good source of information for professional opinions. It is more useful for plain facts.