Length measurements in ancient Greece: Human standards in the golden age of the Olympic Games

Standards are quickly moving towards quantum metrology and provide extremely low uncertainties, which let people perform highly accurate measurements. Yet in the golden age of the early Olympic Games, most standards were based on human elements and were limited by their poor reproducibility. This paper discusses the old standards of length, their differences between cultures and places, their large uncertainty and, notwithstanding this, their great importance in the natural evolution of humanity.