Time and Clocks: A Description of Ancient and Modern Methods of Measuring Time

by Sir Henry H. Cunynghame

Fig. 1.

For, suppose that a shepherd were on the plains of Chaldea, or perhaps on those mountains of India known as the roof of the world, which according to some archæologists was the site of the garden of Eden and the early home of the European race, what would he see?

He would see the sun rise in the east, slowly mount the heavens till it stood over the south at middle day, then it would sink towards the west and disappear. In summer the rising point of the sun would be more to the northward than in winter, and so also would be its point of setting A´. In winter it would rise a little to the south of east, and set a little to the south of west, and not rise so high in the heavens at midday, so that the summer day would be longer than the winter day. If the day were always divided into twelve hours, whether it were long or short, then in summer the hours of the day would be long; in winter they would be short. This mode of dividing the day was that used by the Greeks. The Egyptians, on the other hand, averaged their day by dividing the whole round of the sun into twenty-four hours, so that the summer day contained more hours than the winter day. Hence, for the Egyptians, sun-rise did not always take place at six o’clock. For in winter it took place after six, and in summer before six; and this is the system that has descended to us.

The moon also would rise at different places, varying between A and B, and set at places varying between A´ and B´, but these would be independent of those at which the sun rose and set.

Moreover, the moon each day would appear to get further and further away from the sun in the direction of the arrow, as shown in the sketch. If the moon rose an hour after the sun on one day, the next day it would rise more than two hours after the sun, and so on. This delay in rising of the moon would go on day by day till at last she came right round to the sun again, as shown at M´. And in her path she would change her form from a crescent, as at M, up to a full moon, when she would be half way round from the sun, that is, when she would rise twelve hours after him, or just be rising as the sun set. This delay and accompanying change of form would go on, till after three weeks she would have got round to a position A´, when she would rise eighteen hours after the sun, and have become a crescent with her back to the sun; in fact, she would always turn her convex side to the sun. At length, when twenty-eight days had passed, she would be round again about opposite to the sun, and consequently her pale light would be extinguished in his beams, and she would gradually reappear as a new moon on the other side of him. This series of changes of the moon takes place once every twenty-eight days, and is called a lunar or “moon” month, and was used as a division of time by very early nations. The changes of the seasons recurred with the changes in the times of rising of the sun, and took a year to bring about. And there were nearly thirteen moon changes in the year.

It was also observed that during its cycle of changes, the sun was slowly moving round backwards among the stars in the same direction as the moon, only it made its retrograde cycle in a year, and thus arose the division of time into months and years. The stars turned round in the heavens once in the complete day. The sun, therefore, appeared to move back among them, passing successively through groups of stars, so as to make the circuit of them all in a year. The stars through which he passed in a year, and through which the moon travelled in a month, were divided by the ancients into groups called constellations, and its yearly path in the heavens was called the zodiac. There were twelve of these constellations in the zodiac called the signs. Hence, then, the sun passed through a sign in every month, making the tour of them all in the year. To these signs fanciful names were given, such as “the Ram,” “the Water-bearer,” “the Virgin,” “the Scorpion,” and so on, and the sun and moon were then said to pass through the signs of the zodiac.

Hence, since the path of the sun marked the year, you could tell the seasons by knowing what sign of the zodiac the sun was in. The age of the moon was easily known by her form.

When the winter was over, then, just as the sun set the dog star would be rising in the east, and this would show that the spring was at hand. Then the peasants prepared to till the earth and sow the seed and lead the oxen out to pasture, and celebrated with joyful mirth the glad advent of the spring, corresponding to our Easter, when the sun had run through three constellations of the zodiac. Then came the summer heat, and with many a mystic rite they celebrated Midsummer’s Day. In autumn, after three more signs of the zodiac have been traversed by the sun, the sun again rises exactly in the east and sets in the west, and the days and nights are equal. This is the autumnal equinox, and was once celebrated by the feast which we now know as Michaelmas Day, and the goose is the remnant of the ancient festival.