32 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XI. 



If it really existed, the name of Royal Cubit*, 

 inscribed on these wooden measures, was doubt- 

 less applied exclusively to that of 28 digits (which 

 I have shown to be the usual length of the wooden 

 measures, and of the cubit of Elephantine), and 

 the simple cubit may have contained only 24 ; 

 but there is no authority for that of 32 digits above 

 alluded to ; nor, indeed, is it at all certain that a 

 smaller one of 24 was actually used by the Egyp- 

 tians. 



Since writing the above, I have received from 

 Mr. Harris, of Alexandria, an account of a measure 

 which has been discovered at Karnak, on the re- 

 moval of some stones from one of the towers of a 

 propylon, between which it appears to have been 

 accidentally left by the masons, at the time of its 

 erection, at the remote period t of the 18th Dynasty.. 

 It is divided into 14 parts, but each part is dou- 

 ble in length those of the cubit of Elephantine, 

 and therefore consists of 4 digits ; and the w^hole 

 measure is equal to 2 cubits, being 41^ inches 

 English, Thus then one of these contains 20'C500 

 inches, which suffices to show that the cubit of 



'=>——' The difference in length of these 



AWVv 



two cubits was perhaps taken from the measurement at the upper side 



of the arm A to B, ^ ^.g—, , ^ c ^"'^ ^^^^ under or outside from 



A to C, which would be a difference of about four fingers. 



•|- These towers were erected by Horns or Amun-men ? 9th King of 

 the 18th Djaiasty, who reigned from 1408 to 1395 B.C., and who used 

 stones from older monuments, bearing the oials of the King whose 

 name occurs at Tel el Amarna (ride pi. 5. of my Materia Hierog. 

 V. and W.), who had also erased the name of an Amunoph. 



