[Avodah] The amah and the floor of the Bet HaMikdash

[Eli Turkel via Avodah]

[Quotes restored, and forwarded from Areivim. Therefore Areivim members
may want to go straight to RET's new material by scrolling down around
2/3 of the way to line 79. -micha]


On Wed Sep 7 02:45:40 PDT 2016, R' Eli Turkel wrote:
> <<http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4851042,00.html>>

> An English version is at http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.740548

> The tiles were made of polished multicolored stone perfectly cut in
> a variety of geometric shapes. The flooring has been dated partly on
> the basis of the types of stones from which they were made. Most were
> imported from Rome, Asia Minor, Tunisia and Egypt. A key characteristic
> of Herodian tiles is that they were sized to correspond to the Roman foot.

> from wikipedia (roman cubit) In ancient Rome
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Rome>, according to
> Vitruvius <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvius>,
> a cubit was equal to 1-1/2 Roman feet
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Roman_units_of_measurement#Length>
> or 6 palm widths which is 443.8 mm (17.47 in).

> Note that an Amah of 44.3 cm is less than that of R Chaim Naeh (48cm)
> (much less than RMF (54cm) and Chazon Ish (61cm)). In recent years the
> shiur of RCN has been revised downward.

> also from wikipedia
> See also Rabbi Chaim P. Benish's "Midos V'Shiurei Torah" where he brings
> an alternative view in understanding the *Rambam* and therefore suggests
> that the *etsba*, according to the *Rambam*, is 0.7480.756 in (1.901.92
> cm). This would affect the other measurements in the following ways:
> *Tefah* 2.993.02 in (7.597.67 cm);
> *Zeret* 8.989.07 in (22.8123.03 cm);
> *Amah* 17.9518.14 in (45.5946.08 cm).

> Hence, the size of these tiles are almost exactly according to the
> "revised" R Chaim Naeh measurements.

At 06:30:19 PDT, Zev Sero replied:
} An amah of 44.38 cm means a revi'it of 68.29 ml, and thus a 12th-century
} Egyptian dirham of 2.5292 g. I don't think even the lowest estimate
} goes that low. The lowest I've seen is 2.8 g.

} (RACN took for granted that the 3.207 g Ottoman dirham used in EY in
} his day was the same as the one used in Egypt in the Rambam's day.)

At 11:37:24 PDT RET replied:
> First I am not giving a halachic psak but discussing archaeology. The
> new tiles claimed to been used on the Temple mount have a length of
> 1 Roman foot. in https://templemount.wordpress.com/ this is given as
> 29.6cm A Roman Amah is approximately 1.5 "feet" giving it 44.4cm

> Note that the revision RCN used by Beinisch gives i amah is about
> 46.5cm Given all the uncertainties in these numbers they are quite close
> to each other. The calculation of Beinisch is based on the Rambam which
> could be an additional approximation. It would not be surprising if the
> figure of Rambam is off by 5% based on a myriad of factors and equally
> well the archaeological estimates can be off by that much.

> In any case the estimate of CI is extremely different. I note that
> according to CI the dimensions of 500x500 amah for har habayit just misses
> fitting into the walls so the shiur needs to be minimally reduced. I
> once saw an article that wanted to add 5% to CI based on different kinds
> of amot. According to that shitah the 500x500 square could not fit into
> the walls of the Temple mount.

At 3:39am PDT Micha Berger replied:
| In http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol27/v27n116.shtml#05 I looked at the
| implied length of an ammah from Chizqiyahu's water tunnel and holes and
| niches that appear on Har haBayis at multipe of the same interval.

| From those markings, it would seem that somoene doing work on Har
| haBayis used a unit of measure of 43.4cm +/- .2.

Actually the Roman Amah was a drop less than 1-1/2 Roman feet and so
the calculation is closer to 43.4 cm but I rounded it up.

| As for the floor, what if there were borders framing each square,
} or that are in some other way the centers of a pattern that also had
} something around them. This could mean that what we have is not a complete
} ammah, and the floor implies more than 44.4cm?

from the article https://templemount.wordpress.com/
    So far, we have succeeded in restoring seven potential designs of the
    majestic flooring that decorated the buildings of the Temple Mount,"
    said Snyder, explaining that there were no opus sectile floors in
    Israel prior to the time of King Herod. "The tile segments were
    perfectly inlaid such that one could not even insert a sharp blade
    between them.

} Or maybe Herod's workers didn't use halachic amos except where necessary
} lehalakhah. And so we're back to the water tunnel.

This assumes there is a difference between a Halachic Amah and a Roman
Amah. I would be interested in any discussion of this point but am
not personally aware of such a difference.
Certainly in other areas the coins were Tyrian coins and not halachic
coins.

As an aside a question:
The gemara states that shiurin are halacha le-moshe misinai. The examples
are usually volume shiurim like ke-zayit, etc which are based on fruits
or perhaps the egg.

Are the length shiurin etzbah, amah etc also halacha le-moshe mi-sinai?

| The water tunnel is 525m long. The inscription says that it's 1,200
| amos. Which would be 53.75cm per ammah. However, 1,200 is a round number,
| meaning that the real value could be in the range of 1150 to 1250. The
| largest possible ammah in late bayis rishon, given the inscription,
| would be 45.7cm. 44.4cm or anything else the flor tiles might have been
| is in range, even assuming the squares are the whole design.

Obviously Hezkiyah didn't use a Roman (or Greek)  or Greek set of
measurements -)

Eli Turkel