Babylonian Hours - counted from Sunrise ? The shadows in picture are not good - so don't assume the times will be right
The dial is not a polyhedral dial that one would set up in the garden which would read the same time on each face according to the time of day. Its a portable dial to be carried around (as a sign of one's sophistication?). My first guess was that one was supposed to get it pointing north with the compass and read standard hours. Turn it though 90 degrees about the polar axis and read Babylonian hours. What is odd is that the dial is set for a latitude of 23.5 ° (a significant angle !) - nowhere near the latitude of London where the dial (and its predecessor in Holbein's portrait of Nicholaus Kratzer) were made. Then, thanks to John Davies for making that connection, I took a look Peter Drinkwater's 1993 "The Sundials of Nicholaus Kratzer". I quote... "the conception of these Dials is brilliant, but its execution unperceptive and horologically useless".... and .... "Holbein was a good observer and a meticulous recorder" ... and ... "what is depicted can do nothing: it is simply not right, and would seem to be a Kratzerian cock-up of magnificent proportions". Does anyone know any of Peter Drinkwater's descendants? It would be nice to get their permission to re-publish his little booklet to the Sundial Mailing list. On 5 Feb 2011, at 10:32, Alexei Pace wrote: > If I may ask - why is the dial face (the one facing the viewer) on the > polyhedral dial different from the rest with the gnomon set on the 6 hour > line? Yet the time is just 1 hour behind the two times shown on the other two > dials. > > Regards > > Alex > > > > On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 8:59 AM, <patrick_pow...@compuserve.com> wrote: > > After only recently learning of the Google Art Project, I looked at Holbein's > Ambassadors today and like many others I was amazed at the resolution. This > huge painting, it's not far off 7ft square, is here in London at the National > Gallery and it is now available to view under Google's Art Project at: > > http://www.googleartproject.com/museums/nationalgallery/the-ambassadors > > Painted in 1533 it has the most interesting collection of contemporary > dialling equipment all of which are painted in immense detail. There are two > globes (one terrestrial and one celestial), a quadrant, a torquetum, a > polyhedral dial and a shepherd's dial and some others I don't know, all of > which are set in such a way as to tell some 'story' to the understanding > viewer. > > Until now it has been almost impossible for a sundial-interested visitor to > the gallery to attempt to understand much of the detail - there just isn't > time - but now with this view you can. You can even see for yourself the four > place names marked on the terrestrial globe (one of which helped to identify > one of the depicted persons as Jean de Dinteville, the Seigneur of Polisy) > and you can even read the music and words in the open book and guess at the > date and time shown on the shepherd's dial.. > > It doesn't (I think) help with viewing the anamorphic skull as a skull - or > at least you still have to turn your monitor round to do so! - and I STILL > don't understand the object behind the shepherd's dial... Anybody know what > that might be? > > Patrick > > > > --------------------------------------------------- > https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial > > > > --------------------------------------------------- > https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial >
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