Talk:Pous

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Discuss first change later

I would like people to compare the version reverted by Drini with the version he replaced and note how much malicious damage his vandalism did. He removed the comparative units which was the purpose for creating the page. He removed the references and he removed the wikified introductionRktect 02:34, August 22, 2005 (UTC)


 * This article is about the pous. Start from that simple premise.  Stick to it.  Gene Nygaard 02:56, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

In order to define anything you need to be able to say both what it is that makes it what it is (a pous) and what it is that makes it not something else. ( a bd, pes, fot, foot rmn, cubit, ellen or nibw)

Definition is as basic a scientific principle as there is.Rktect 04:45, August 22, 2005 (UTC)


 * It's also not a chicken, and sticking to units of measure, not a barrel of oil equivalent either. So what?  Don't forget that this article does not stand alone.  It is part of an encyclopedia which contains many other entries as well.  Gene Nygaard 10:57, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

It might be useful to have some discussion about standards of measure and why they exist. Why are they very similar in some ways and also dramatically different in others? Some clearly are derived from body measures, some are derived from agricultural measures and both of those subsets are combined in a geo-commensurate system which survives as a stable standard for six millenia.

Standards of measure are stable because they define property but there is more to it than that. For a culture whose calculations are designed around the use of unit fractions, measures are a handy shorthand that allows practical solutions to finding areas and volumes of non rectangular shapes.

There are a lot of problems in the Rhind papyrus that touch on what became known as the three classical problems of Greek antiquity, one of which I have now put up on the khet page. Squaring a circle, doubling a cube and trisecting an angle are all easily solvable if you allow the substitution of a ruler and compass for a straightedge and compass.

The way that relates to feet is through their use as rulers and the use of their subdivisions and multiples as tools for calculation (see Egyptian circle which is also on the khet page) Rktect 10:36, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Redirect
I sincerely cannot see the point of this article (and others in the same "series") as standalone articles. This one really should be a redirect to Ancient Greek weights and measures (which in its turn needs a severe cleanup). -- Egil 11:19, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

About the "comparative analysis"
Sorry, this seems to be pure Stecchini stuff. By very intricate series of arguments, Stecchini tried to show that the various ancient systems of measurement were related to each other by defintion, and tables like these are typical examples. Stecchini basically seems to claim that all known systems measure by definition relate to each other by a precision of at least 5 digits. He certainly touches the idea of the degree as a common basis for units of length (see also User:Egil/Sandbox/rktect), but additionally he constructs intricate arguments about for instance how he believes early standards of length were initially derived from perfect cubes of a standard weight, and that the different feet of different cultures can be *explained by different mediums used to fill these cubes, like water, wheat and barley. Why we have found no historic evidence of these 'magic' cubes, and how one could expect to reach 5 significant digit using a standard based on the density of barley is not explained! (For more Stecchini, see http://www.metrum.org/ )


 * I get a kick out of Egil. Everything is always "seems to be", "seems to claim", speculation and opinion with a definite POV and agenda. If he doesn't know about something it becomes "magic". None of his opinions is ever properly documented, referenced or cited and he repeats the same old tired misinterpretations of fact over and over again.


 * Stecchini has a site dedicated to his memory (metrum) which explains his work much better than can be done in a few lines here. Essentially he collected discussions and studies of measures of length, area, volume and value in the ancient world and did a fairly good job of showing how they were all part and parcel of the same system.

Stecchini is the professor whose ideas basically fuelled much of the modern pyramidiot movement.


 * No, that would be Piazzi Smythe, the royal astronomer of Scotland whose thinking was probably much closer to Ole Roemers than Stechinnis.

He was also a strong supporter of Immanuel Velikovsky, the guy who claimed that obscure planet movements were the cause of various catastrophies reported through historic time, for instance the planet Venus being ejected from Jupiter around 1500 BC, and the Earth coming into close contacts with Mars in the 8th and 7th centuries BC, etc! -- Egil 12:10, 22 August 2005 (UTC)


 * So what Egil? None of that has any relevance to a the Greek pous which was already being researched and documented centuries before Stechinni was born. Rktect 02:26, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

re Gene's coment's
1.) The Greeks who settled along the east coast of the Mediteranian Sea were called Peleset by the Egyptians, Phillistines by the Sons of Israel, Phoenicians, Pelegasians, and Punics by classical authors. They called themselves Pele, or Pilli. They lived in what was considered a part of the Egyptians vassalage and their pous was the same as the Egyptian. Rktect 02:26, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

2.)The Ionian Greeks used a pous which was the same as the Roman pes.


 * So what's your problem? Can't you ever fix any of your mistakes and ambiguities?  Why in the world do you suppose your Iomic is a redlink?  Fix it&mdash;and don't leave it at a disambiguation page, either.  Why haven't you linked to Phoenicia?  Can't you do anything other than cut and paste the same nonsense all over the place?  WTF is that "bd" nonsense?


 * Since you make make not the slightest effort to work with other people, nor to correct your mistakes even when they are pointed out to you, it is hardly surprising that most of your edits are not well received. Gene Nygaard 03:07, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I corrected the spelling of Ionian. I haven't linked to Phoenicia because it is iron age and where you really need to get into the pous as a standard is early bronze age. That means Linear A and B, all the early scripts, a few wreck sites, the Phaistos Disk, and the Hittites.

There is evidence for the use of the pous as a standard amongst the Mycenean Greeks, Minoans and the Sea peoples going as far back as the Phaistoes disk and the stories of Sinhue and Wen Amon.

It would be interesting to discuss the antiquity of the trade links between the Weshesh, Peleset, Tjeker, Danae, Shardana, in the Chalcolithic and bronze age in that context, then move forward through the conflict between Egypt and Kadesh, then bring in the Persians and Phoenicians and Ptolomaic Greeks, and include the influence of Libyan Cyrene but that is simply too much for one page.

All of the Early Greeks and proto-Greeks are organized by oinkos, gene and phratre way and their languages have interesting parallel developments as regards trade words.

By the time of Rin Sin we would be following the developments of the copper and tin trade from Syria across Anatolia and the effect of the domestication of the horse, IE languages and blue water shipping.

The linkage of the pous to the pes is another story and probably pretty close to the one told by Vitruvus involving the ten books of architecture, the Greek orders, their antecedents in Egypt and the idea of geometry being incorporated in the dimensions of buildings.

A bd is an Egyptian foot. (glyphs for foot and hand).

As to working with other people, try being a little less antagonistic, more discussion, fewer reverts, deletions, tags, and vfds. I don't mind providing the answers to questions or admitting to and correcting some spelling errors.

As to "cutting and pasting the same nonsense all over the place", what I would like is for the pages to fit together so that what is said on one page leads into what is said on another and there are good transitions and links that connect the different pieces together.

My first page discusses the sos and the agricultural basis of standards of measure in Mesopotamia which then through trade in metals during the bronze age are diffused to the reast of the ancient near east as definitions of property.

On another page I'm talking about the organization of 3ht or fields and how that results in a length of 100 royal cubits being expanded to a length of 300 royal cubits.

On another page I'm talking about the khet which is the measure of the side of the field as 100 cubits and how that measure becomes central to the problems of the rhind papyrus.

On another page I'm talking about how the khet, and st3t become the aroura and how Herodotus tells us the Greeks, Persians and Libyans adopt the Egyptian standards of measure so that the st3t becomes the aroura and the itrw becomes the schoenus.

All of this bears on misconceptions about the stadia of Eratosthenes, Archimedes, Marinus and Ptolomy the accuracy of their values for a great circle and their knowledge of the circumference of the earth being incorporated into standards of measure by the Greeks and Romans.

Still another page talks about the pes and how the Romans measures derive from the Greeks.

My expectation would be to spin off of the discussion of "feet" to address standards of measure in different periods and parts of the world. How body measure standards and agricultural standards were linked, and how the iron age trade in metals brought ANE standards of measure to Europe, but all that discussion has now been torpedoed.

It is hardly suprising that I am a little bit aggravated by the characterization of this as "original research"", "pseudo science" and "nonsense" when anyone who has studied the topic knows better.Rktect


 * Another rambling dissertation on your whole pyramidology belief system, just to tell me you corrected the spelling of Iomic. But even then, you didn't listen at all.  Didn't I specifically warn you not to leave this as Ionic, a link to a disambiguation page?


 * That's why you don't get any respect. You don't listen to what anybody else has to say.  You don't get any respect because you haven't earned it. Gene Nygaard 14:04, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I tend to listen more carefully to some things than to others. People who spew forth pointless venom get less attention than those who make constructive criticisms. You do both so you get some of my attention but not as much as you would if you quit trying to pretend you were one of those little spanish lap dogs whose bark is way out of proportion to their size. Rktect 16:56, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

As an architect I work with measurements all day long every day. To have all the aspects of measurement and proportion that architects work with relegated to pseudoscience and pyramidology is more than a little bit alarming. I would like to direct your attention to the antiquity of our profession and assure you that most of the proportions are governed by things like how much structure it takes to support a given load and not entirely by what does it look like. Though you may not think me worthy of respect you should respect the knowledge base.Rktect 15:19, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

disputed
Once again Egil has tagged a page with no discussionRktect 22:22, August 27, 2005 (UTC)
 * Good point. I've removed the tag, as it's not appropriate without a stated reason. Ken talk 22:28, August 27, 2005 (UTC)


 * The dispute is for instance with regards to Stecchninis theory of the daktylos division of various Greek feet. I thought this talk page made it clear. -- Egil 05:44, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

No Egil, simply saying "I don't believe it" without giving a reason doesn't make your case Rktect 10:08, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

Redirect
Anyone mind this article being made into a redirect to Ancient Greek weights and measures? -- Egil 17:18, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Two POUS definitions
Ummm... Athens was in Attika/Attica, so WHY is there an "Attic pous" and an "Athenian pous"?

You are fraking with a persons educational experience because of your PMS problems over some pedantic Stecchinia@$%$$%%-philic bastard who for *gods only know why* was allowed equal access to Wikipeia's "Edit" key with the same autocratic power as an educated Dr. of Arts, Classicist. Ergo, geo-cities is as likely a "valid" resource as "Wikipedia", negating the sole purpose for HAVING a free encyclopedea.

Because I have pissed away part of my finite life-span looking up WTF is the length of FRAKING POUS; thanks to those on this forum, im pissed off and closer to dead, and still uneducated. 108.38.36.17 (talk) 01:48, 24 November 2011 (UTC)