The Egyptians made metal rods, which corresponded to a cubit; they divided the cubit in hand with markings- and finger widths. For thousands of years, the cubit was used by many peoples as a measure of length, but it was not the same length everywhere,
By today's standards, a cubit is roughly 48 centimeter.
Their system of measurement was based on the human body. The most important unit was a "cubit", the average distance from the elbow to the fingertips. Each cubit was divided into seven "hand widths" and each hand width into four "finger widths".