A coloured print in six scenes. A man pours wine into a bottle with a funnel, a woman weighs on a balance, and others measure cloth, walls, coins and firewood. — How to use the new measures, a print of 1800. Picture 1 says "le Litre (pour la Pinte)", the litre in place of the pint.
Image: J. P. Delion (design) and L. Labrousse (engraving), Usage des nouvelles mesures (Paris, 1800), hand-coloured print, Paris Musées · Public domain

A Knaph story

The Story of Volume

From a papyrus roll and a granary to the litre in your kitchen

c. 1550 BCE – today

A scribe filling a granary, a king's crown in a bath, a wedding cask in Linz and a cube a tenth of a metre wide. How people learned to measure how much space a thing fills.

A Knaph story

The Story of Volume

From a papyrus roll and a granary to the litre in your kitchen

c. 1550 BCE – today

A scribe filling a granary, a king's crown in a bath, a wedding cask in Linz and a cube a tenth of a metre wide. How people learned to measure how much space a thing fills.