Dear Frank (King), Frank King wrote:
> No doubt the transition to equal hours (whether > starting at noon, midnight, sunrise or sunset) > was gradual but I feel it long predates mechanical > clocks. Do you have any evidence supporting your feeling? I have studied the question when the pole-style sundial, reading equal hours, appeared in the Western world. Zinner appeared to be the most important reviewer of the few written primary sources. My conclusion was that the pole-style dial appeared around 1400, hence a century or so AFTER the introduction of mechanical clocks. I have written an article about this (in Dutch ;-) for the Dutch and Flemish bulletins in 2004. It has been suggested that the pole-style dial (and hence equal hours) was brought to the West by returning crusaders. Karlheinz Schaldach gave convincing arguments against this in BSS Bulletin 96.3. Best regards, Frans Maes --------------------------------------------------- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
