Archives
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- September 2018
- August 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- August 2017
- July 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- September 2016
- July 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- November 2015
- September 2015
- June 2015
- March 2015
- December 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- September 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
-
Recent posts
Blogroll
- Animation Backgrounds
- Anwar the Artist
- blog 30 x 30
- Carnegie Library Children's Department
- Carolyn Crimi
- Cat Scott's blog
- Catherine Friend
- Cedric Hohnstadt
- Game Artisans
- Iain Welch
- Ilene Lederer
- Ingvard the Terrible
- Jan's blog
- Jennifer Wood
- Jerry Russell's blog
- John Manders Illustration
- Julie et Lydia F.Ferron
- Lou Romano's blog
- Margeaux Lucas
- Marsha Diane Arnold
- MB Artists
- My Etsy shop
- Neil Shapiro
- Patrick Wirbeleit
- PBwithJ
- Pierre Alary le blog
- Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators
- Robert Bloom's sketchbook
- Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast
- Society of Illustrators
- Three Silly Chicks
- Vince Dorse's blog
- Western PA SCBWI illustrators' blog
- Will Finn's blog
- WordPress.com
- WordPress.org
-
Join 1,110 other subscribers
January 2023 M T W T F S S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Tweets
- RT @LisaBrabson: Little snowflake,REMI is fighting for her wee life 💔 Stunningly beautiful,with a 1 of a kind smile,she will wiggle into yo… 14 hours ago
- RT @MyBoxerLuvMac1: 💔Shaka💔 #NYCACC #156371 2y ▪️Late KILL COMMAND ▪️Shared him 4 Mo❗ ▪️Needs #Foster! Sweetie given up, as owner hospitali… 14 hours ago
- RT @MyBoxerLuvMac1: 💔Rocky Reindeer💔 #NYCACC #161039 3y ▪️To Be Killed: 1/26💉 Social sweetheart, left behind by owner! Discarded like garba… 3 days ago
- RT @MyBoxerLuvMac1: 💔Yoda💔 #NYCACC #161825 1y ▪️To Be Killed: 1/26💉 Absolutely adorable, lovey dovey sweetheart! Beautiful, playful baby, a… 3 days ago
- RT @Iza_2021: 🆘Euthanasia🆘shelter FULL Kaiser #A5515589 is #urgent He is wonderful yet so overlooked! WHY🥺 Pls reach out to #rescues on… 3 days ago
Tag Archives: sundial
ImageAncient Egyptian water wristwatches never caught on
January 31, 2019 in Western Civilization
Tagged clepsydra, clock, Egypt, sundial, time, timekeeper, water clock
Egyptian water clocks
Sundials tell time during the day, when it’s sunny. How did the Egyptians tell time at night?
Way back around 1500 bc (over 3,500 years ago) some clever Egyptian invented the water clock so they could tell time at night. A water clock is a jar with sides that taper from a wide brim to a small base. Almost at the bottom is a small hole. The idea is: you fill the jar with water and water leaks out the hole. There are marks on the inside of the jar for every hour. As the water level slowly sinks, it reaches each mark and that’s how you know what time it is.
It sounds like a swell idea, but I have a few problems with it. Number One: I don’t know exactly how big these jars were, but it doesn’t seem like there’d be nearly enough water inside them to last all night long. Even if the hole at the bottom were a mere pinhole, I think the water would run out in an hour. Did they wake up every hour to refill the water clock? That seems like a pain in the neck.
Number Two: to function as an accurate time-measurer, that jar would need to be filled precisely on the hour. You’d need to coordinate with a friend outside looking at a sundial so he could tell you the moment to fill it up.
Number Three: where did the water go after it leaked out? Did they just let it run all over the floor; did they collect it in another jar?
Number Four: Did their dogs see puddles of water on the floor and think, “What the heck, it must be okay to pee in the house now?”
Number Five: Didn’t the sound of dripping water keep them from sleeping?
Posted in book promotion, Western Civilization
Egyptian sundials

An Egyptian lady catching some rays from Ra.
Let’s travel west from Sumer, away from the MidEast, along the northern coast of Africa to Egypt. About 1,000 years after civilization was up and running in the Tigris-Euphrates valley, the Egyptians got started on their civilization which thrived from 3100 bc to 332 bc. Like the Sumerians, Egyptians depended on a river—the Nile—and a system of irrigation to water their crops to keep the economy going. Their writing system was hieroglyphics—symbols that represented sounds, or ideas, or things. Their government was monarchical—they had a single ruler, called a Pharaoh. The Egyptians worshiped a pantheon—which means a bunch of gods and demi-gods. The Pharaoh was worshiped as a god, too.
The Sumerian culture must have influenced the Egyptians somewhat. The Egyptians divided the day into two halves, each having 12 hours—twelve is an easy Base Sixty number. The Egyptians are thought to have invented the sundial. The earliest example of a sundial has 12 hours marked using lines on a semi-circle, 15° apart.

A fragment of a limestone sundial. The gnomon goes into the hole at top.

This sundial is a half-bowl cut out of a block of stone.
A sundial is a simple way to measure the passage of the Sun. There’s a post (called a gnomon, pronouced NOM-ON) sticking up from a flat, horizontal surface. Lines are drawn on the flat surface, radiating out from the gnomon. When the Sun is shining, the gnomon casts a shadow on the lines. Each line represents the passage of an hour.
The Egyptians built huge obelisks—big stone monuments. These were sundials, too. The obelisk cast a shadow on the ground, which was marked for every hour. As the Sun moved across the sky, the shadow would move along the dial, showing the time. Of course, sundials only work when there’s daylight. How did they tell time at night?
Posted in book promotion, Western Civilization
Tagged astronomy, Base Sixty, Egypt, egyptian, obelisk, science, Sun, sundial, technology, time, Western Civilization