Abstract
The oldest astronomical instrument is the naked eye, with which the courses of the celestial objects were observed. Since time immemorial, people have noticed that the celestial bodies rise at the eastern horizon and set at the western horizon. They have also noticed that some stars never set and that all stars circle around a fixed point in the northern sky (at least on the northern hemisphere, where the oldest civilizations were. See Fig. 2.1). Already in ancient times, this point was conceived of as the end of the celestial axis. More on the celestial axis in Chap. 5.
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Notes
- 1.
Before 1582 A.D., the dates of the equinoxes and solstices shift about one day per 128 years on the Julian calendar. This was corrected by Pope Gregory’s calendar reform, which resulted in an error of only one day in about 3,000 years. Moreover, to eliminate the 10-day error that had developed since the church council of Nicea, in the same year, 1582 ten days were passed over so that 4 October was followed by 15 October. This is why Table 2.1 differs from that in Couprie (2003: 181), where 23 September was taken as the date of the autumnal equinox throughout.
- 2.
White reads for Anaximander: “on the 29th [day from the equinox]” (2002: 10). This makes, however, only a few minutes difference: on 28 October 560 B.C., the sun rose at 4:33 h, and the Pleiades set at 4:17 h.
- 3.
- 4.
Information from USHA-member Rob van Gent, according to the computer program Planetary, Lunar, and Stellar Visibility 3.0. Pannekoek, discussing Hesiod, gives on one and the same page the dates for the cosmical setting of the Pleiades as 12 and 3 November, the last the same as Wright (Pannekoek 1961: 95; Wright 1995: 18). Dicks (1970: 36) has 5–11 November; Bickerman (1980: 112) has 3–5 November for latitude 38° and the years 500–300 B.C.; Wenskus (1990: 250) has 4–6 November for 700–300 B.C. (see also p. 49), and elsewhere: “Ende Oktober – Anfang November” (1990: 176). White has November, and remarks: “the extended size of the cluster makes its rising and setting impossible to determine precisely” (2002: 10).
- 5.
Kelley and Milone use another definition of “Archaeoastronomy” than in this book, namely, “the practices of pretelescopic astronomy” (2005: vii).
- 6.
See also Strabo, Geographica, ed. H.L. Jones (Strabo 1923, vol. II: 10).
- 7.
Gobry, who reads this text as “Selon Thalès (…) la course de la lune est le cent vingtième de celle du soleil”, is twice mistaken (2000: 172).
- 8.
Wasserstein tries to make acceptable that Thales would have used another method than that with the clepsydra, since his result differs from that of Cleomedes (1955: 114–116). Thales’ result of 1/720, Wasserstein says, is obviously inspired by the hexagesimal system, in which the circle is divided in 360°. His argumentation, however, is not convincing. Given the inaccuracy of the measuring method, Thales – or whoever performed the calculation – could very well, for instance for aesthetic reasons, have brought his results in line with the hexagesimal system. Moreover, Wasserstein gives no indication of what other method Thales should have used.
- 9.
The clepsydra on Fig. 2.9 is in the Athenian Agora Museum. It is said to be used to control the length of a testimony in the Dikasterion. When the water stopped flowing, everyone yelled “sit down” to the speaker (information by Robert Hahn). Of course, this does not exclude the possibility of using the clepsydra for astronomical purposes as well.
- 10.
Information by Robert Hahn.
- 11.
For quick information, see the article “Moon illusion” in Wikipedia.
- 12.
- 13.
See, e.g., Pliny’s description of the obelisk that was erected on the Campus Martius in Naturalis historia XXXVI, 72.
- 14.
MUL.APIN means as much as “the Plough star.” It is a small constellation, consisting of our constellation Triangulum and the star δ Andromedae.
- 15.
In a recent study, Haase has held the somewhat strange opinion that Herodotus’ text must be read in the sense that Anaximander “im Unterschied zum altorientalischen Verständnis dieses Messtechnischen Instruments den Gnomon erstmals als Medium begriff” (2008: 18, my italics).
- 16.
I did it myself in Couprie (2003: 185).
- 17.
See also Sarton (1959: 174): “A relatively large amount of precise information could thus be obtained with the simplest kind of tool.”
- 18.
Dicks is wrong when he writes: “the equinoxes cannot be determined by simple observation alone” (1966: 31). And also elsewhere: “The concept of the equinoxes is a more sophisticated one, involving necessarily the complete picture of the spherical earth and the celestial sphere with equator and tropics and the ecliptic as a great circle” (1966: 30). It is also not right to say that “these concepts are entirely anachronistic for the sixth century B.C.” (1966: 30; see also 1970: 45). Of course, the ancient ways of fixing the equinoxes and solstices did not possess the grade of accuracy we would expect nowadays. See also, for instance, Fotheringham: “The determination of the exact date of a solstice remained a difficulty throughout the whole course of ancient astronomy. Even Ptolemy deduced from his own observations a date 38 h later than the true date for the summer solstice” (1919: 168).
- 19.
These were the problems Carlo Rovelli’s students were confronted with when he asked them to repeat Thales’ measurement.
- 20.
According to Clayton 1994: 44, the norm was 51°52′.
- 21.
Similar remarks in Menander, fragment 304 (364K) and Eubulus, fragment 119.
- 22.
The text on top may be translated as “knowing the hours of day and night, starting from fixing noon”, as I will defend in a forthcoming article.
- 23.
Strictly speaking this holds only for the time between the autumnal equinox and the vernal equinox, when the noon shadow falls either on the first mark (at the equinoxes) or somewhere in between the first and the second mark. In the other half of the year, the shadow falls somewhere between the upright part and the first mark, thus creating an extra “hour.”
- 24.
E.g., Sloley (1931: 169 and Plate XVI, 4).
- 25.
Isler proposes still another use, quite different, of the bay. He lets the observer put it upside down (with the split end under) at the top of the shadow of a gnomon “to help clarify a shadow by reducing surface reflection” (1991b: 162, Fig. 9; cf. 1989: 198, Fig. 5; see also Lull 2006: 292, Fig. 96). Moreover, Isler shows all kinds of forked and curved sticks that could function as a gnomon, but none of them looks exactly like the bay in Fig. 2.23.
- 26.
- 27.
- 28.
See for some critical remarks Couprie and Pott (2001: 47).
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Couprie, D.L. (2011). Archaic Astronomical Instruments. In: Heaven and Earth in Ancient Greek Cosmology. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 374. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8116-5_2
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