From an everyday question to the next discovery.
Under the system of unequal hours, an ittoki was one of six equal divisions of either daylight or night. Japanese clocks accommodated these changing lengths by adjusting their speed or the spacing of their hour markers.
In editorial order. You can move to another field at any time.
1–7 of 7 articlesPage 1 of 1
Six divisions for daylight, and six for night. How did Japanese clocks keep time when the units stretched and shrank with the seasons?
In Meiji-era Japan, the day after the second of the twelfth month became January 1. Place the old and new calendars on the same timeline, and you can see what jumped ahead and what continued uninterrupted.
East of the standard meridian, solar noon comes earlier. Yet even in Akashi, it does not always fall at 12:00. Separate the difference due to place from the difference due to date to untangle the relationship between clocks and the Sun.
2000 had a February 29, but 2100 will not. Count how the 97 leap days are distributed across 400 years, and a calendar rule that seems full of exceptions becomes a single calculation.
Bread before farming, seeds that stay attached and settled hunter-gatherers: different clues untangle changes in cultivation and everyday life.
Grain accounts, royal names, unread seals and knotted cords reveal different ways of organizing life together.
From ceramics in a shipwreck to printing, ocean crossings, cotton mills and planetary carbon: follow what moved and the people whose work made it possible.