[Sca-cooks] maize and cubits

[Stefan li Rous]

Back on September 1, Bear said:

<<< Leonard Fuchs refers to maize as Turkische Ko:rn in his herbal  
around 1543,

but the best evidence is from Leonard Rauwolf who traveled between  
Tripoli

and Baghdad in 1573-75.  Along the Euphrates, Rauwolf observed, "Indian

millet (maize) six, seven or eight cubits high."



Bear >>>

Something doesn't seem right here. Looking up the length of a "cubit"  
on the web I get varying measurements, but they range from "about 17  
to 22 inches (43 to 56 centimeters)". Even assuming a conservative  
number of 17 inches that makes the shortest "Indian millet (maize) 102  
inches or 8.5 feet tall and the taller up to 136 inches or 11.3 feet  
tall.

I know we've been breeding maize to be shorter and thus easier to  
harvest, but these numbers seem awfully tall.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****