Alternative Egyptology and scientific archaeology were born on the Giza Plateau
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
What a slur. Division into twelfths (and sixtieths) was quite common in measurements and currencies around the world because of the convenient affordances of all the factors. Most also relied heavily on powers of two (most notably the US version of the "imperial" system) which are extremely convenient. The reliance on rational numbers makes computation in the head very easy.
And the units are more "humane" for customary activity (a stair riser is 2/3 of a foot; a cup is a common quantum for food consumption, a mile is roughly a thousand paces etc). A mm or cc is way too small and a meter is kind of gigantic (yards are less common than feet). A litre works fine though.
There's a lot to like about the si system, but division by ten was a disaster, and the lack of convenient units is a persistent bug.
It also divides evenly by 3.
For comparison:
1/3 of a mile is 1760 feet. 1/2 of that is 880 feet 1/2 of that is 440 feet 1/2 of that is 220 feet 1/2 of that is 110 feet 1/2 of that is 55 feet.
1/3 of a km is 333.333333 meters 1/2 of that is 166.666667 meters 1/2 of that is 83.333333 meters 1/2 of that is 41.666667 meters 1/2 of that is 20.833333 meters 1/2 of that is 10.416667 meters
16 cups in a gallon, 12 inches in a feet, 1760 yards in a mile. It's not humane that children should memorize these completely arbitrary scales and weird names.
I also think (again in common household uses like setting a thermostat or talking about the weather or a fever) a fractional degree celsius is false precision, since you can't feel it, and a whole degree celsius is too coarse, so something that ranges from 0-100 in the temperatures you're likely to encounter is better than a scale which ranges from 0-100 over (the equally arbitrary) liquid phase of water. Of course it's marginal, but it's not entirely true that (unlike the metric system) all these measures are totally arbitrary.
There are advantages and disadvantages to these systems. If you have to convert inches to miles a lot--yeah, the metric system performs much better for that. But conversions of scale or dimension--while extremely common in science and engineering--are not likely in common usage, while fractional division is much more common. It's likely that you don't recognize the advantages of an alternate system merely because you're unfamiliar with it.
From this statement I doubt you know where I grew up.
The metric system is convenient for calculations involving conversions of scale or dimension (e.g. "How long is my finger, in kilometers?" "What is the rough mass of a cubic meter of water?"). The standard units are more convenient for calculations involving division, as you point out.
These are convenient in different arenas and it doesn't surprise me that these different arenas use different systems. For science and engineering uses, the metric system is a lot better, and it's in wide use. For the common human-scale uses you point out, the standard units are more convenient.
People often pooh-pooh the matter of "convenient" units but the fact is that teaspoons and tablespoons are still used for cooking, even in France itself. And these aren't approximations but (as they are in the U.S.) strictly defined according to a standard.
The metric system makes a great standard, which is why the U.S. fully adopted it and all weights and measures are defined in terms of the metric system. The metric system is taught in schools. There's just not a compelling reason to, for common and mundane uses, to switch to it; and some disadvantages.
(I always wondered why decimeters weren't more popular with metric users, they seem convenient enough. But they do seem to get by fine with piles of centimeters.)
For scientific use, nothing beats the metric system of course. Having to go imperial would probably significantly increase the amount of migraines scientists have on a daily basis.
Partly because it's what our users most wanted to know about--but partly also because there's been so much miseducation about the site. At least everyone can explore for themselves now.
I haven't heard that they've been able to enter the void yet, but there's more information about the project and findings here: http://www.scanpyramids.org/index-en.html
* Its insistence upon dating artifacts to whichever pharaoh last carved his cartouche into some convenient surface, often much more crudely than the work itself.
* The overwhelmingly finer and more precise polish and symmetry of the oldest stonework. Most particularly, the tens of thousands of bowls and bottles abandoned in galleries under the Step pyramid. Some are of corundum, the stone of rubies and sapphires. Many are carved nearly paper thin. Exactly precise mirror symmetry is found only in the oldest statuary, cut from the hardest rock.
* An entire lack of evidence of tools capable of such precision work in such hard stone.
Numerological coincidences are made rich fun of, but the Egyptians, as was common in antiquity, were keen numerologists, and naturally treated numerical coincidences as divinely significant. The builders seem to know of the near match of certain fractions of pi and of phi to better than 0.1%, and use it in especially sacred spots.
Ancient knowledge of usefully precise values of geometric constants, even where not perfect, should not provoke skepticism: they could measure. Building these values into sacred structures need not have been meant to communicate anything but their own piety. Every dimension must be in some ratio to others, and may often be freely chosen. Why would they not choose sacred numbers for sacred constructions?
Perhaps most oddly, though, the cubit used in construction (e.g. in the dimensions of the "King's Chamber", 10x10x20) exactly matches the French "royal cubit" of two centuries ago. The SI meter, officially assigned one forty-millionth of the Earth's circumference (why?), is related to this cubit by another <0.1% coincidence.
When I think about Neom the Line I imagine that even in ancient Egypt architects tried to hype up their designs in some way. A pyramid does not leave much leeway to changes in the design. All you can change is absolute dimensions and angles/ratios. Imagine a VC pitch where entrepreneurs are trying to outdo each other on having the best ratio. Architects that have the same idea will compete based on quality, the better approximation will win.
So, we know about Imhotep, official Architect to (IIRC) two or more successive pharaohs. Presumably, whatever he says goes, subject to the pharaoh's and then the priesthood's non-negotiables. Also presumably, he has underlings who make less consequential decisions. After he dies or falls from grace, his choices might be revisited.
Then we have insular groups and guilds, such as the priesthood, the masons they depended upon, post-flood re-surveyors, canal and irrigation specialists, metalworkers, carpenters, navigators, potters, and scribes, each with its own governance conventions.