How many jamirs in a kadam?
While watching my newly acquired Indiana Jones DVDs I was reminded of a something that annoyed me in the days before the web. There’s a scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where an old man is reading the inscription on the (Egyptian?) staff headpiece.
Imam: This was the old way. This means six kadam high.
Sallah: About seventy-two inches.
Imam: Wait.
Imam: “And take back one kadam to honor the Hebrew God whose Ark it is.”
So if 6 kadam is 72 inches that means one kadam is roughly equal to one
foot. And to remove 1 kadam would make the staff 5 feet long (1.52m).
But when we see the staff later in the movie it looks to be at least a
foot taller than Indy.
So how long is a kadam? Ten years ago I wouldn’t have had sufficient
motivation to research it. Now I have google.
Kadam (μdq) seems to be the Hebrew for precede but sadly the only references I can find that refer to it as a form of measurement are pages referring to the goof in the movie. It appears in other languages. There’s an entry in a Malay dictionary that gives the definition as “sole of foot”, which would tie in nicely with the movie’s 1 kadam = 1 foot definition.
So it’s probably a goof – but whose? Was Sallah’s definition of kadam incorrect? Was it the propmaker? I googled for the script to Raiders and found the “revised third draft” dated August 1979. In section 81:
AMIR It says it is...ten jamirs high... SALLAH About seventy-five inches. AMIR Wait! I am not finished... Amir's finger moves across the break as the markings con- tinue on the sun medallion. AMIR (reading) "And one jamir to honor the Hebrew God whose Ark this is." Indy, still holding the date, exchanges a long look with Sallah.INDY You said their top section was blank. Are you absolutely sure? Sallah nods. INDY Belloq's staff is seven and a half inches short. They're digging in the wrong spot!
So the script originally called for a staff of around 83 inches (or around 210 cm), and in fact later says Indy carries a smooth wooden staff almost seven feet tall.
I guess we can blame a last-minute rewrite for this screw up, and I can watch Raiders again without being distracted by my own stupid nit-picking. Except… what was wrong with “jamirs” anyway?
