The pyramid inch is a unit of measure claimed by pyramidologists to have been used in ancient times.

History

The first suggestion that the builders of the

Great Pyramid of Giza The Great Pyramid of Giza is the biggest Egyptian pyramids, Egyptian pyramid and the tomb of Fourth Dynasty of Egypt, Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khufu. Built in the early 26th century BC during a period of around 27 years, the pyramid is the oldes ...

used units of measure related to modern measures is attributed to

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astronomy professor

John Greaves John Greaves (1602 – 8 October 1652) was an English mathematician, astronomer and antiquarian. Educated at Balliol College, Oxford, he was elected a Fellow of Merton College in 1624. He studied Persian and Arabic, acquired a number of old boo ...

(1602–1652), who journeyed to Egypt in 1638 to make measurements of the pyramid. His findings were published in his ''Pyramidographia'' (1646) and under his name in an anonymous tract. More than a century later, Greaves' measurements and additional measurements made by French engineers during

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, were studied by John Taylor (1781–1864). Taylor claimed that the measurements indicated that the ancients had used a unit of measure about 1/1000 greater than a modern British inch. This was the origin of the "pyramid inch". Taylor regarded the "pyramid inch" to be 1/25 of the "sacred cubit", ancient unit based on the forearm length from the tip of the middle finger to the bottom of the elbow, whose existence had earlier been postulated by

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...

. The principal argument was that the total length of the four sides of the pyramid would be 36524 (100 times the number of days in a year) if measured in pyramid inches. Taylor and his followers, who included the Astronomer Royal of Scotland Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819–1900), also found numerous apparent coincidences between the measurements of the pyramids and the geometry of the earth and the solar system. They concluded that the British system of measures was derived from a far more ancient, if not divine, system. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, this theory played a significant role in the debates over whether Britain and the United States should adopt the

metric system The metric system is a system of measurement that succeeded the decimalised system based on the metre that had been introduced in France in the 1790s. The historical development of these systems culminated in the definition of the Internati ...

. The theory of Taylor and Smyth gained many eminent supporters and detractors during the following decades, but by the end of the 19th century it had lost most of its mainstream scientific support. The greatest blow to the theory was dealt by the Egyptogist

Flinders Petrie Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ( – ), commonly known as simply Flinders Petrie, was a British Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. He held the first chair of Egypt ...

(1853–1942), whose father was a believer. When Petrie went to Egypt in 1880 to perform new measurements, he found that the pyramid was several feet smaller than previously believed, including the missing capstone. This so undermined the theory that Petrie rejected it, writing "there is no authentic example, that will bear examination, of the use or existence of any such measure as a ‘Pyramid inch,’ or of a cubit of 25.025 British inches."W. M. Flinders Petrie, ''The Pyramids and Temples of Giza'' (London, 1883), p18

The pyramid inch now appears to have no significant scientific support. No direct evidence for it has ever been found.

References

{{reflist, 2 Obsolete units of measurement Pyramidology Numerology Great Pyramid of Giza