CHAP. xr. THE CUBIT. 27 



to the contrary) tliat tliey were measured to a 

 decimal number of cubits. The vocal statue of 

 Thebes and its companion are Httle more than 

 60 feet high (including the pedestal), which make 

 35 cubits ; but this leads to no conclusion, because 

 we are uncertain whether a fixed measurement was 

 assigned to the whole statue with its pedestal, or 

 to the figure alone, and neither this part nor the 

 pedestal bear an exact proportion to the cubit. It 

 is, indeed, probable that a monument of such mag- 

 nitude, and of such consequence, as the pyramid 

 was measured by a decimal number of cubits, and 

 the exact length of its faces was doubtless divisible 

 by such a number ; but, as I have already stated, 

 the accurate determination of its original dimen- 

 sions is still a desideratum, and no conclusion can 

 thence be formed ofthe length of the Egyptian cubit. 

 Happily other data of a less questionable nature 

 are left us for this purpose, and the graduated cubit 

 in the Nilometer of Elephantine, and the wooden 

 cubits discovered in Egypt, suffice to establish its 

 length, without the necessity of uncertain hypo- 

 theses. 



Some have supposed that the Egyptian cubit 

 varied at different periods, and that it consisted at 

 one time of 24, at another of 32 digits; or that there 

 were two cubits of different lengths *, — one of 24 

 digits or 6 palms, the other of 32 digits or 8 palms, 

 employed at the same period for different purposes. 

 Some have maintained, with M.Girard, that the cubit 



* The Jewish cubit was 1 ft. 8-24.in., or I ft. 9-888 in. 



