[Aztlan] Maya measurements

[Jorge Pérez de Lara]

Rod,

I would very much like to know what your sources for this are. I had 
never before heard of these measurement units and I find it fascinating 
that evidence for them survived.

Jorge


On Nov 29, 2007, at 5:21 PM, rod44 at comcast.net wrote:

> Being an engineer, I looked into this years ago.  I wrote a short 
> article on it for the IMS  Newsletter of July 2004 called  Maya 
> Measurements.  As far as I know, at least for northern Yucatan, the 
> common unit was the zapal (about 5 ft.) or the distance between 
> outstreched hands of a short man (similar in concept to the British 
> fathom)  this was divided into 16 kabs of about 3.75 in each (about 
> the width oh a hand closed) and this into 9 zools of about 1 cm (or a 
> finger width). 
>