I had so much material to reveal in this book that I scarcely knew where to begin. I decided to start with that first profound numerical shock I experienced in 1977. The Sumerian, Anglo-Saxon, or Northern foot of 13·2 Imperial inches has continued to fascinate me ever since. Was this archaic measurement based on a much taller ancient race?
Certainly the evidence of ‘King Arthur’s footprint’ at Tintagel would appear to suggest that our distant ancestors were a good bit bigger than we are today. So I was surprised and delighted to discover mention of this ancient measurement in John Michell’s book City of Revelation, when I finally managed to get hold of a copy during the early part of the nineteen eighties. John Michell indicated a number of fresh areas of confirmation for the measure itself:

“...the appropriate unit here is the Sumerian foot. This has been accurately defined from the graduated tablet known as Gudea’s Rule, now in the Louvre; Berriman in ‘Historical Metrology’ gives the value of the Sumerian foot as 13·2 inches or 1·1 English feet...”

John Michell - City of Revelation - Abacus (1969)

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