Inches to Egyptian Fingers (in to digit)

1 inch equals 1.354666667 Egyptian fingers (rounded).

1 inch = 1.354666667 Egyptian fingers

How to convert inches to Egyptian fingers

To convert inches to Egyptian fingers, multiply the number of inches by 1.354666667. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply Egyptian fingers by 0.7381889764 (rounded).

Egyptian fingers = inches × 1.354666667

Example: 10 inches = 13.54666667 Egyptian fingers.

Approximate value. Standards for the Egyptian finger varied by place and period, so this converter uses the most commonly cited value. Treat results as estimates, not exact figures.

About these units

Inch (in)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

1/12 of a foot. Defined as exactly 25.4 millimeters since 1959, when the US and Commonwealth countries agreed a common international inch.

Latin uncia, meaning one-twelfth, is the root of both inch and ounce, and it passed into Old English as ynce. Roman measurers divided their foot into twelve unciae, and the English inch kept that twelfth. After 1066 an inch was reckoned as three barleycorns, and a 1324 statute attributed to Edward II spelled out the definition as three grains of barley, dry and round, placed end to end lengthwise. For centuries the inch was simply a twelfth of a foot, or a thirty-sixth of a yard, and the US and UK each kept their own copy of the standard yard.

Those copies differed slightly until the 1959 international agreement fixed the yard at exactly 0.9144 meter, which made the inch exactly 25.4 millimeters. The US adopted it in 1959 and the UK ratified it in 1963, effective 1964. Today the inch is still the customary unit in the United States and Canada, and the UK keeps it on road signs. Worldwide it also names display diagonals, wheel rims, tire codes and pipe sizes.

1 inch = 0.0254 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Inch; Wikipedia: Yard; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

Egyptian Finger (digit)

Ancient EgyptianHistorical unit (no longer in standard use)Approximate value

One 28th of a royal cubit, about 1.875 cm. The smallest standard division of Egyptian length.

Egyptian length units seem to have begun as parts of the body, and the finger, or digit, is the smallest of them: the width of a finger. Modern writers also call it a fingerbreadth, and the Egyptian word is given as tebā. It was the basic subdivision of the royal cubit, which held 28 fingers, and four fingers made one palm. The figure used here, 1.875 cm, is simply the royal cubit of about 52.5 cm divided by 28.

Because the finger depends on the cubit, it carries the same uncertainty. Surviving cubit rods run from roughly 52.35 to 52.92 cm, which puts a finger anywhere between about 1.87 and 1.89 cm, and Wikipedia's article on Egyptian units quotes about 1.875 cm. The rods themselves were marked in fingers, which let craftsmen and builders read off small distances directly. In modern terms a finger is a little under two centimetres, or about three quarters of an inch.

1 Egyptian finger = 0.01875 meters (approximately).

Sources: Wikipedia: Ancient Egyptian units of measurement; Wikipedia: Cubit

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