Chapter 4
What were the first measuring devices?
Sundial/shadow clock
What clocks did monks use in the mornings?
horologia excitatoria/awakening clocks
Where there were no natural mountains, people built artificial mountains. The oldest surviving examples are the stepped pyramids- the what of ancient Mesopotamia?
Bonus 100 points if you can name what century they were built in.
Ziggurats were built in the twenty-second century
The great obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the ocean was not ignorance but what?
The illusion of knowledge
Burnet's sacred theory described the making and remaking of the earth's surface in four phases. What are they?
Creation, Deluge, Conflagration, and Consummation
What was the first small success in measuring the dark hours?
Water clock
What two presents did Ricci bring to the Emperor?
A large clock and a small clock
What did the Buddha instruct to be done with his bones when he died?
His bones, after cremation, should be placed in a mound at the crossing of four highways, to symbolize the universal reign of his teachings.
European folklore suggested each person had his own star. What did a shooting star represent?
A persons death
The influential Strabo insisted that the torrid climate on both sides of the equator, where the sun stood directly overhead for half a month each year. It had two characteristics, what are they?
(bonus 500 if you can name his birth or death)
Flora and fauna
Strabo (64 B.C.-A.D. 25)
When was the pendulum clock perfected?
1700
If Su Sung's purpose was not to make a timepiece for public convenience but to create what?
A calendar machine/private heavenly clockwork
Kailasa was constructed by first cutting a trench into the mountain to isolate a mass of rock that was 276 feet long and 154 feet wide. How many feet in the air did the rok go?
100 feet
What became the custom to put in the mouth of the dead to ensure passage?
A coin (Bonus 100 points if one of you has a coin with you)
Eratosthenes had heard that at noon on what day would the sun cast no shadow?
June 21
In England what was frequently placed in coffins as a symbol that life's time had run out?
Sandglasses
In what century did clocks, watches, and clockwork toys become a treasured currency to the Chinese?
18th century
After Buddhism ebbed away from India what religion returned?
The Hindu faith
Although Platonism and Christianity contradicted each other in countless ways, What did they both confirm?
The traditional maps of Heaven and Hell
Eratosthenes said that the circumference of the earth was 28,700 miles. This is what percent to high?
15 percent
What famous clock was designed to help Alfred the Great?
Candle clock
When did the first manual clockmaking finally appear in China?
1809
On Mt. Meru, according to the sacred Hindu scriptures, what is said to be at the top?
Rivers of sweet water running in it, and golden houses inhabited by spiritual beings.
Who was the most persuasive Christian geographer of Heaven and Hell? Bonus 500 points if you can tell me the year of his birth or death.
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
One of the most appealing and most universal protomaps of the universe was the what?
The World Tree