Dear Roger, You are right...
> This gets more interesting with each note. The business of labelling gnomonic features elegantly can be a nightmare! With an ordinary sundial you have a chapter ring of one kind or another for the labels of the hour-lines and life is straightforward! When you try to label Babylonian hours and Italian hours it is easy to get into a mess. [You especially get into a mess if you insist on using Roman Numerals. A time like XVIII takes up a lot of space!] You say that... > ... on the sundials in Istanbul, Topkapi > Palace ... they assigned 6 to noon. On > the equinox all the lines cross the meridian > at 6. The others then fall into place. This certainly makes things easier but could you confirm my interpretation of what you are saying? Are you saying that at the crossing point, on the equinoctial line, at one hour before noon, they number the four times: Babylonian = 5 French = 5 Italian = 5 Temporary = 5 Clearly Babylonian and Temporary would be called 5 anyway but not French and Italian. Have I misunderstood? > The horizontal 12 line on the south facing > dial is interesting. Sorry. I am lost here! Is this the line which I would call Italian = 24 but which is now being numbered 12 because it is 6 at equinoctial noon? > In Istanbul they used two 12 hour cycles > so there were no numbers in the teens and > twenties. Given your assertion that noon = 6 are you saying that when there are 14 hours of daylight the French hours are numbered: 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 Also, do they use *real* Arabic numerals? Very best wishes Frank --------------------------------------------------- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
