Royal Cubits to Feet (cubit to ft)

1 royal cubit equals 1.722440945 feet (rounded).

1 royal cubit = 1.722440945 feet

How to convert royal cubits to feet

To convert royal cubits to feet, multiply the number of royal cubits by 1.722440945. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply feet by 0.5805714286 (rounded).

feet = royal cubits × 1.722440945

Example: 10 royal cubits = 17.22440945 feet.

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

About these units

Royal Cubit (cubit)

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

The standard Egyptian cubit of about 52.5 cm (20.7 in), divided into 7 palms of 4 fingers. Surviving cubit rods were used to lay out the pyramids.

Among the earliest standard measures on record is the royal cubit, written meh niswt, meaning the cubit of the king. The English word cubit comes from Latin cubitum, the elbow, since the unit was first the forearm. The Egyptian version ran longer than the common cubit, holding seven palms of four fingers, or 28 fingers, against 24 for the ordinary one. It appears in Old Kingdom building work from at least the Step Pyramid of Djoser, around 2700 BC.

Our knowledge of its size comes from physical rods. Richard Lepsius compared fourteen of them in 1865, and examples from the tombs of Maya at Saqqara and Kha at Thebes survive, one folding rod being in the Museo Egizio in Turin. Measured rods fall between about 523.5 and 529.2 mm, so the 52.5 cm used here is one common estimate within that range. In modern terms the cubit is roughly 20.6 to 20.8 inches, a little over half a metre.

1 royal cubit = 0.525 meters (approximately).

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

Foot (ft)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

12 inches. Defined as exactly 0.3048 meters. Still the standard unit for height, altitude in aviation and room dimensions in the US and UK.

Human anatomy supplied the idea: an adult foot is roughly 15 percent of body height. Ancient cultures turned that into standards, but not the same one. The Greek pous was about 302 mm, the standard Roman pes about 295.7 mm, and a Harappan foot of about 335 mm has been reported from the Indus Valley. Historically, a foot fell somewhere between about 250 and 335 mm. Charlemagne tried to standardize units around 790 with little lasting success, and in 1593 English law fixed the statute mile at 5,280 feet.

The modern foot dates from the 1959 International Yard and Pound Agreement, which defined the yard as exactly 0.9144 meter and so the foot as exactly 0.3048 meter; the UK adopted it on 1 January 1964. The US survey foot, defined in 1893 as 1200/3937 meter, was deprecated on 31 December 2022. Feet remain in everyday use for height and rooms in the US, and ISO shipping containers are defined in them. Aviation altitudes use them too: flight level 330 means 33,000 feet.

1 foot = 0.3048 meters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Foot (unit); Wikipedia: Mile; NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors

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