I often hear the ancients say that a man is seven feet tall. How tall were people who were seven feet tall in ancient times?

Of course, the measurement methods of the ancients were different from those of modern people, and in ancient times, each dynasty had different standards for the measurement unit of "ruler", so the word "seven-foot man" did not apply to any era. We are about 33 centimeters long now. According to this standard, the ancients were all giants of Yao Ming's height, which is impossible. In ancient times, food was poor and nutrition was insufficient. The average life expectancy of Qing emperors was only about 40 years old, which shows that there were not enough conditions for people to grow so tall at that time.

The earliest record of a man who was seven feet tall was in Zhou Li, but at that time, seven feet meant age and seven feet meant twenty years old. However, since it is related to the length, it may be that the manager calculated the height of young people around the age of 20, which is about seven feet, so this standard is used to refer to 20 years old. The Book of Rites was completed in the Han Dynasty. One foot in the Han dynasty is equivalent to about 22 centimeters now, and seven feet is less than one meter six. This height is relatively short compared with today.

Later, the connotation of "seven feet" has changed a lot, but the general trend is upward. It may be that with the continuous improvement of people's material life, nutrition has kept up and their height has increased. For example, in the Southern Dynasties, one foot was about 25.8 cm long, and in the Southern Dynasties, seven feet was really used to describe a man who served his country, so it is more credible to have a height from 1.75 to 1.80. But in the Tang Dynasty, it became 365,438+0.7 cm after one foot. It's a bit exaggerated to say a seven-foot man at this time.

In a word, we think that the height of ancient people must be shorter than that of modern people. The main reasons for this situation are insufficient nutrition intake, incomplete bone development and inability to improve natural height. There are also some reasons, such as ethnic integration and population transfer between the north and the south. These are also important reasons for the height changes of the ancients.