Left: an ancient device for determining the azimuth of the sun at midday transit, described by Ptolemy.
First you use a gnomon aligned with the meridian to determine midday. You move the inner ring of the device until the shadow of ridge A falls on ridge B. Then you read the angle of the sun on the outer ring. Precision is to closer than 1 degree.
Right: a 2nd century BCE graffito from Meroe, Sudan, apparently depicting an astronomer using this instrument.
Joel Christensen on how the misappropriation of ancient Greek literature is being used to fuel culture wars in education.
If someone wants students to learn to 'act like Odysseus', it'd be nice to think that doesn't mean learning to hang enslaved people or to make war on their own compatriots.
Out today! Producer Mark Helton and writer Tera Eon discuss their time-traveling heist show Murphy's Inc, using characters to flesh out the world, working with someone else's ideas, criminals as protagonists, and dealing with (or not) time travel paradoxes.
Currently on the Council of the Folklore Society, Associate Editor of its journal Folklore, & on the editorial board of #FolkMusic Journal.
I've written on #ghostlore, folklore about #rats, #cannibalism at sea, tongue twisters (inter alia), and (increasingly) folklore's history. Was doing this through folkloresque representation in #folkhorror & crime novels (& soon #DrWho), now planning just as historical research. Perhaps...
Supra - What are other current and future classics? Post a photo