[Sca-cooks] maize and cubits
t.d.decker at att.net
t.d.decker at att.net
Sat Nov 28 06:00:42 PST 2009
-------------- Original message from Stefan li Rous <StefanliRous at austin.rr.com>: --------------
> 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
The cubit is the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. Maybe Rauwulf had short forearms.
What I suspect is that Rauwulf estimated the height rather than actually measured. Most people tend to overestimate lengths, heights, etc.
Bear
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