A report on: https://indiablooms.com/travel-details/N/1164/2-000-year-old-sundial-recovered-in-turkey-s-anatolia.html says the following: "Inscribed on the dial are the Greek word ‘Ksimerini’, or winter on the upper part; ‘Isimerini’, or solstice, which denotes the equality of day and night in the middle; and ‘Terini’, or summer in the bottom."
Ksimerini would in Greek start with Ξ (ksi), but a close look at the initial, hi-res photo strongly suggests that the first character is X (chi), in accordance with what John Davis and John Wilson's wife read. So it seems the names are spelled as follows: XIMEPINH = winter solstice IΣHMEPINH = equinox TEPINH = summer solstice in which X is Greek chi, P is Greek rho, H is Greek eta. A photo further down the article shows clearly that the front is cut away. Best regards, Frans Maes On Thu, Apr 9, 2020 at 9:54 AM John Davis <john.davi...@btopenworld.com> wrote: > Dear Frans, > > The picture that Dan-George pointed us to is excellent and intriguing too. > My reading of the lettering is slightly different from yours. Starting from > the top (presumably the winter solstice), I get > > X I M E P I N H > H M E P I N H > E P I N H > > where the columns represent the spaces between the hour lines. There could > be some misreadings here. It is clearly not the standard Greek system of > using the first letters of their alphabet as numbers but I don’t recognise > the names of the seasons either. Looking through Sharon Gibbs’ book, I > couldn’t find a similar set of inscriptions. Can any classical scholars > help us? > > As a second point, the front face of the marble looks to be vertical in > the photo but I found another view online which seems to show it cut back > at an oblique angle. Both forms of dial are known - which is this? > > Regards, > > John > ————— > Dr J Davis > Flowton Dials http://www.flowton-dials.co.uk/ > BSS Editor http://sundialsoc.org.uk/publications/the-bss-bulletin/ > > > On 8 Apr 2020, at 18:37, Maes, F.W. <f.w.m...@rug.nl> wrote: > > Dan-George, thank you for the link! That is a beautiful ancient scaphe > dial. > The article says: "The sundial features ... Greek names of seasons". I can > read a number of characters, which at all three date lines (equinox and > solstices) seem to include MEPINH. What season names are these? > > Keep healthy! > Frans Maes > > On Tue, Apr 7, 2020 at 12:33 PM Roser Raluy <roserra...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Thank you, it looks great! >> Roser Raluy >> >> Missatge de Dan-George Uza <cerculdest...@gmail.com> del dia dt., 7 >> d’abr. 2020 a les 10:12: >> >>> Hello, I've just read about the discovery of an antique sundial in >>> Turkey. >>> >>> >>> https://www.dailysabah.com/life/history/2000-year-old-sundial-unearthed-in-southern-turkeys-denizli >>> >>> Best regards, >>> >>> -- >>> Dan-George Uza >>> --------------------------------------------------- >>> https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial >>> >>> --------------------------------------------------- >> https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial >> >> --------------------------------------------------- > https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial > >
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