Royal Cubits to Yards (cubit to yd)

1 royal cubit equals 0.5741469816 yards (rounded).

1 royal cubit = 0.5741469816 yards

How to convert royal cubits to yards

To convert royal cubits to yards, multiply the number of royal cubits by 0.5741469816. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply yards by 1.741714286 (rounded).

yards = royal cubits × 0.5741469816

Example: 10 royal cubits = 5.741469816 yards.

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

Yard (yd)

US & ImperialCurrent unit

3 feet or 36 inches, exactly 0.9144 meters. Used for sports fields, fabric and short distances in the US and UK.

Yard descends from the Old English gerd or gyrd, meaning a branch, stave or measuring rod. It first appears in the late seventh-century laws of Ine of Wessex, though there it names a tax unit, the yardland. Around 959 to 963 King Edgar ordered that the measure held at Winchester be used throughout his realm, the earliest record of a prototype. A story that Henry I fixed the yard as the distance from his nose to his thumb is later folklore, and the true origin, whether pace, cubit or waist, remains speculative.

Britain defined the Imperial Standard Yard in 1824 as the distance between two marks on a brass rod at 62 degrees Fahrenheit. A fire in 1834 damaged the standard, a replacement was made in 1845, and the Weights and Measures Act 1855 recognized it. The 1959 international agreement then fixed the yard at exactly 0.9144 meter. Today it measures American and Canadian football fields, association football pitches and cricket pitches, appears on UK road signs for short distances, and is still used to sell fabric in the US and UK.

1 yard = 0.9144 meters (exactly).

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

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