Hi everyone,
Regarding the presentation mentioned by Roger, I found that Stephen
Luecking had a paper in The Compendium: "Laying Out A Sundial Using
Ancient Rope Geometry" / Stephen Luecking / The Compendium 12(4),
December 2005, pp.5-9. As well, he discussed using rope for constructing
layouts, but not related to sundials, in "Pulling Ropes and Plumbing
Lines: Geometry for the Neolithic Engineer," available on the web at
https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2004/bridges2004-321.pdf
Further to Jack's note, with one common meaning of 'pommel' in English
being the knob at the end of a sword handle, it's easy to see relating
to any knob at the end of a rod, then one just has to look at an
armillary sphere to see how that can transfer that meaning to a
celestial pole.
Steve
Terrestrial Armillary Sphere - Historic Models, Authenic Museum Replicas
and Furniture
On 2022-03-04 8:57 a.m., Roger Bailey wrote:
At the NASS conference in 2005 in Chicago, Stephen Luecking gave a
Rope Geometry Workshop, "Laying Out a Sundial on the Landscape Using
Ancient Rope Geometry".This was based on his paper "Rope Geometry:
History and Methods" These described other methods for telling time
with rope,different from Marchants . People used what they had at hand.
Roger Bailey
On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 11:45 AM Jack Aubert <[email protected]> wrote:
I tired searching for “pommeau de ciel” and “pommeau des cieux”,
which not surprisingly I did not recognize in either English or
French. Pommel is Pommeau in French. I mostly got hits for shower
heads and gear shift knobs… but did find a reference to the
original French on Google Books:
https://books.google.com/books?id=BVtcAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA108&lpg=PA108&dq=pommeau+de+ciel&source=bl&ots=4NKJk6haHD&sig=ACfU3U0xr9oORL7S6zs-nKRg-NnTizDKfQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiD_trVyqr2AhVlkeAKHacJDbwQ6AF6BAghEAM#v=onepage&q=pommeau%20de%20ciel&f=false
<https://books.google.com/books?id=BVtcAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA108&lpg=PA108&dq=pommeau+de+ciel&source=bl&ots=4NKJk6haHD&sig=ACfU3U0xr9oORL7S6zs-nKRg-NnTizDKfQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiD_trVyqr2AhVlkeAKHacJDbwQ6AF6BAghEAM#v=onepage&q=pommeau%20de%20ciel&f=false>
But reading the text, it does appear that “pommel of the sky”
could only refer to Polaris, as Steve surmises. That being said,
I have to suspect that Guy Marchant came up with this method, that
would be beyond the interest the vast majority of shepherds, on
his own. A shepherd, who is probably illiterate, is supposed to
identify a star and remember to adjust its time position
throughout the year? Also, why would he care what time it is at
night? Maybe they taught that in advanced shepherd class.
Jack
*From:* sundial <[email protected]> *On Behalf Of
*Steve Lelievre
*Sent:* Thursday, March 3, 2022 2:17 PM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* Re: Telling time with a rope?
Hi,
I think the pommel of the sky refers to the celestial north pole,
i.e. where we see the Pole Star or Polaris.
Then, on the summer solstice hold a plumb line in front of you
such that it obscures the Pole Star, and find another circumpolar
that is also hidden by the plumbline. In the rest of the year,
the angular displacement of this second star tells you how far
from midnight you are, provided you make an adjustment of 1 hour
per half month.
For the method to work, you need to have established midnight on
the summer solstice. This is done by fixing two plumb lines one
behind the other, so that they are aligned to the solstice's
midday sun, i.e. they show you the meridian. I think the text is
saying that on the day of the summer solstice, as the shepherd
faces north looking through the plumb lines, if Cancer is seen
slightly to the east and Capricorn slightly to the west, then it
is midnight (presumably that's only in the British Isles).
I got this from a rather quick scan of the text, so I may have
missed something. There's also discussion of the learning the
rising positions of the signs of the zodiac but I don't quite
follow how it relates to the rest.
Steve
On 2022-03-03 10:11 a.m., Dan-George Uza wrote:
Hello,
In the "Kalendar and Compost of Shepherds" by Guy Marchant, an
illustrated work translated from French into English in the
early 1500s, there is a chapter with the following title:
"Shepherds practise their quadrant at night as you see by the
figure hereafter". Could someone more versed in old English
please explain how this technique actually worked? I attach
the relevant pages from the 1931 edition.
Thanks,
--
Dan-George Uza
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