Since ancient times in Russia, in order to characterize a hero or just a large man, they said: "A slanting sazhen in the shoulders." What is this - a sazhen? Is this an accurate definition of chest width or artistic hyperbole? Let's figure it out. After all, the usual for us meter, centimeter (and at the same time kilogram and liter) as measures were taken relatively recently.
Already in ancient times, people felt the need to determine the length. This was required to calculate distances, to build buildings, to measure the amount of goods (for example, fabrics). Therefore, people were looking for some kind of universal measure of magnitude. As a rule, the parameters of certain parts of the body of an adult male were taken as a basis. So in Kievan Rus a sazhen was born - a measure of length equal to the distance of two arms outstretched in opposite directions. The origin of this term is connected with the Old Slavonic "to encroach". In the Ukrainian language, there are still the concepts of "reach", "shy" (reach, achieve). In Russian, this term is preserved in the word "oath", because,when people swore, they stretched their right hand up.
Of course, people are different, and therefore the range of hands is different for everyone. The sazhen in Kievan Rus ranged from a meter and 42 centimeters to a meter and 52 centimeters. Along with this measure of length, the vershok, arshin, span, and cubit were in circulation. It’s clear with the elbow - this is the size of the ulna, but what is a span? This is the distance between the thumb and forefinger as far apart as possible. The value is also relative - after all, a professional pianist's span is much larger than usual. And there were different fathoms: flyweight, Greek, customs and the already mentioned oblique fathom.
It's interesting that the British standard of length was … their kings. So, the official foot is the size of the foot of John the Landless, and the yard is the distance from the last phalanx of the middle finger of the outstretched right hand to the tip of the nose of Henry I. Since the parameters of a certain person were taken as the standard, there was no such dissonance of measures in the British Isles as in the Slavic lands. Therefore, in the 16th century, a state fathom was adopted - 2 meters 13, 36 cm. But in our country, everything was gradually unified. With Russia's access to the seas and the development of shipping, the fathom was borrowed from the British. After all, the rope to which the load was tied to measure the depth was measured by the coverage of two hands. This is actually equal to simple fathoms. But since 1958, a single standard of this measure of length has been adopted in shipping, equal to 1.8288 cm.
It remains only to find out whatoblique sazhen. To measure her height, an adult man raised his right hand with outstretched fingers. The distance from the end of the middle finger to the heel was equal to an oblique fathom. Even taking into account that the height of a man in ancient times was less than the height of a modern person (about 165 cm), such a measure of length was still equal to two meters and 48 centimeters. It is clear that the shoulders of such a width simply do not happen in nature.
Arshin, pound, cubit and oblique fathom fell into disuse in 1917, when the Provisional Government adopted the continental metric system. The platinum meter is kept in London as a universal standard of length, although the British themselves, followed by the Americans, still measure height and distance in yards and feet.
