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The earliest known length measurement unit is the cubit: the length from the point of a bent elbow to the tip of the longest finger.

Because this length varies from person to person the King's arm was used as the standard cubit and "cubit rods" were cut to that length and used by everyone else to measure lengths and distances.

Other units were determined similarly: the standard foot being the length of the king's foot, the inch is the length of 3 barley corns placed end to end, etc.

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9y ago

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