Surveying in Ancient Egypt

Demarcation of Property
Boundaries
Construction layout Surveys
Setting out Pyramids

 Ancient Egypt considered as time from the earliest

inhabitants of the Nile valley down to the conquest of
Egypt by Elexander the Great in 332 BC.
From earliest times, Egyptians developed a system of
land ownership, land measurement and mathematics to
deal with this measurement.
With time the Egyptians got intertwined with Hellenistic
system.
Because the ruling class in Egypt were Greeks, they
imposed their mathematical and taxation methods onto
Egyptians.
Influence went both directions.
Egyptian phrase for surveyor was rope stretcher and
surveying was known as stretching the rope.

 Calibrated rope was one of the tools used for surveying.

Several tombs show pictures of tomb owners overseeing
man using rope to measure fields
Egyptians developed a system of measurement based on
natural devices, e.g. human arm
They used a cubit which is the length from a bent elbow
to the tips of the fingers.
They also use the palm, which the width of the palm of a
hand, and digits, which the width of the human fingers.
Four digits equal to one palm and seven palm equals to
one cubit.
According to Horward Carter, approximately 1cubit =
0.5231m = 20.59 inches.

 Measure for area is khet, 1 khe = 10000 square cubit =

2735 m or 2/3 acres
This the standard measurement used for agricultural
fields.

Surveying tools
The surveying tools that ancient Egyptian used were
simple and were used very effectively.
The most basic tools were the plumb bob, a cubit rod for
short distances and a calibrated rope of 100 cubits for
longer distances.
These ropes were sometimes knotted at intervals.
Though Egyptians do not seem to have acquainted
themselves with Pythagoras theorem as a mathematical
principle, they applied its practical application of the
3,4,5 triangle for establishing 90 degrees angles.

 For levelling they used a tool shaped like the letter A.

A plumb bob will hang from the top of the A, thru the
centre of the cross beam, then the instrument will be
considered level from end to end.
For large scale levelling they used troughs and channels
filled with water.
For maintaining a straight line the Egyptians used a
merkhet which was well known from Graeco-roman
times.
The merkhet consisted of a plumb bob on a holder.
The plumb bob will be aligned with staff having a cleft or
simply the centre rib of a palm leaf as a vane sight.

Surveying
Surveying fields was common in ancient Egypt.
Ownership of land was very common, though most of
land was owned by Pharoah and the temples.
Surveying was necessary in ancient Egypt because the
annual floods buried and destroyed boundary markers
which then had to be re-established for owners of fields.
Scribed control marks on pyramids, architectural marks
on tombs and few surveying sketch plans of tombs show
how surveyors also performed construction surveys.
Scribes, the educated professional in ancient Egypt had
the practical and mathematical knowledge to supervise
surveys.

 The scribes saw themselves as a special class of

people who maintained order in the society by running
the bureaucracy.
The symmetry and proportion of monuments of Egypt
well attest to the skills of these ancient surveyors.
Rents and taxes made surveying more important
because they were based on area being farmed.
Other surveying done by the Egyptians was
construction layout surveying which included laying out
of tombs, pyramids, temples, palaces and other major
structures that would require surveying prior to
construction.

 The stretching of the cord was the ceremonial lay out of

the new structure,.
For important structures, even the pharoah took part in
the ceremony, playing the role of chief surveyor.
The most famous depiction of the ceremony comes from
the temple of Edfu.
The king also took part in the celestial observations, at
least ceremonially, to establish the alignment
of structures.
No plans for these massive structures has survived, even
for the Great pyramid of Khufu.
Built in the fourth dynasty at about 1250 BC
It provides an excellent example of accuracies egyptians
were able to achieve.

 Several surveyors have measured the Great Pyramid of

Khufu, one such surveyor is William Petrie in 1860.
Most recently the great pyramid has been resurveyed by
David Goodman
231.40m

231.16m

231.46m

231.23m

 Large discrepancy is 30cm between north and the west,

and difference between north and the east is 6cm .
The discrepancy between the north and west might have
been caused by the removal of the outer casing for other
constructions.
The azimuths of sides are similarly accurate.
Goodman calculated the azimuth from observations of
Polaris.
Egyptians had always intended to align the pyramid with
the astronomic north.
With the best technology the Egyptian observations can
be improved by about 4 to 8 minutes of azimuth.
Some of this difference could also explained by a shift in
the location of polar stars relative to the earth.

89 5652

179 56 16
359 52 52

270 00' 27