[Sca-cooks] maize and cubits
Stefan li Rous
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
Sat Nov 28 01:32:13 PST 2009
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 ****
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