Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 May 29

= May 29 =

Origin of sexagesimal timekeeping
Hello, again!

Years ago in my childhood, I remember being taught that we divide an hour into 60 minutes, and a minute into 60 seconds, owing to the base-60 Babylonian numerical system. Indeed, despite its antiquity, it was even better than our base-10 system for creating fractions—since multiples of 60 tend to divide evenly by any whole number in the decad (except maybe 7).

Recently, though, I encountered the Medieval table of Papias, which divided time as follows:

47 atoms == 1 ounce

8 ounces == 1 ostent

1½ ostents == 1 moment

2⅔ moments == 1 part

1½ parts == 1 minute

2 minutes == 1 point

5 points == 1 hour

How widespread was this method of timekeeping in the Middle Ages? Was it replaced with our current system when 12-hour mechanical clocks began to replace 24-hour water clocks in the 16th Century?

Can anybody here point to an academic paper chronicling how this all came to be? Was it in any way influenced by the adoption of Hindu-Arabic numbers when they displaced the old Roman ones?

Thank you for reading this. Pine (talk) 07:14, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
 * are you thinking of some article work and want all sources which might be useful, or just those answering your specific questions? fiveby(zero) 17:09, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I'd appreciate any resources that might be useful.
 * I always assumed that sexagesimal horology had remained unchanged since ancient times. An article on how division of hours evolved would most definitely serve an academic purpose!
 * Pine (talk) 22:08, 29 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Page 17 of Macey has more specific information. Similar subdivisions have been used by other medieval authors: Bartholomew of England and Honorius of Autun. The development of the subdivision of the hour from antiquity to today is probably not a straight line but contains some forks or independently originating parallel lines, with one approach eventually winning out. --Lambiam 22:51, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Leclercq seems to be saying here that one such division is from gromatici but the cited jstor article from Tannery and Gromatici Veteres are beyond me. Also he points to The Reckoning of Time: four punctos, ten minuta, fifteen partes, forty ''momenta, [etc.] fiveby(zero) 19:33, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The method described above looks like some medieval author's idea of a joke (it reminds me a bit of the monetary system in Harry Potter, which is a send-up of the pre-decimal English monetary units). Who would want to do math in base 47?  Or deal with multiples of 2-2/3? -- Avocado (talk) 14:33, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

By the way, a substantial fraction of the medieval European population (perhaps the majority) did not use sexagesimal timekeeping -- they divided the day into twelve hours from sunrise to sunset, and another twelve hours from sunset to sunrise (not necessarily equal in length to the daylight hours), and had little need for precision beyond halves or quarters of an hour in their ordinary daily activities. The constant-length minute did not become widely known beyond astronomers, and others who had special need for precision time measurements, until public mechanical clocks began to be displayed in cities, around the 14th century. AnonMoos (talk) 06:36, 30 May 2023 (UTC)


 * We have an article Atom (time), supposedly so named because it was considered "the smallest possible unit of time", equated in the Bible with the time of the blink of an eye. It is defined in in Byrhtferth's Enchiridion as 1/564 of a moment (1½ minutes). Perhaps Byrhtferth or some predecessor determined this experimentally by counting how often he could blink in 90 seconds. Note that 564 = 12 × 47, so then the atom is 1/47 of an ounce (1/12 of a moment). --Lambiam 12:24, 31 May 2023 (UTC)


 * The modern smallest division of time is the "Planck time"... -- AnonMoos (talk) 21:46, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

References
 * for a general introduction
 * short paragraph p. 13 along with more general discussion of divisions of day and hour
 * probably not useful, but a broad discussion across cultures of divisions and indication of parts of the day
 * probably not useful, but a broad discussion across cultures of divisions and indication of parts of the day

Thank you for all of the references! I most certainly now have quite a bit of reading to do!

Let's hope that the ostents and atoms not drag. :) Pine (talk) 06:49, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Could Habiru have traveled by ship?
I'm wondering if they could have travelled by ship to Meluhha, and then become the origin of the Abhira.Rich (talk) 07:28, 29 May 2023 (UTC)


 * I warned you about positing long-distance migrations between culturally-divergent peoples based solely on very vague word similarities in the 2022 September 10 archive. There's no logical reason why a Habiru person couldn't have got on board a ship, sometime during the late bronze age or early iron age centuries, but there's a strong incongruity between the fact that the Habiru seem to be associated with the deserts surrounding Canaan (insofar as the word doesn't just refer to poor people or malcontents or bandits within a civilization), vs. the idea of setting sail from southern Iraq.  The maritime social disrupters of that era were the Sea Peoples, but they were in the Mediterranean, not the Persian Gulf... AnonMoos (talk) 07:53, 29 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Is this my last warning?Rich (talk) 03:38, 30 May 2023 (UTC)


 * I have no ability or desire to keep you from asking whatever you want here, as long as it falls within the allowed parameters of the Reference Desk, but I was a little disappointed that after you asked a much more reasonable question about the Moabites, you're now back to asking a rather unreasonable question (a slight variant of your Sept. 10 question, whose problematic assumptions were explained to you in detail then). AnonMoos (talk) 06:13, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry. I have read on Wikipedia though that the people that in Sumer were called Sa.Gaz lived in southern Mesopotamia. I don't see why they couldn't have got on ships or even been sailing on ships, to Meluhha. I'm sorry i'm such a disappointment  :-) 136.36.123.146 (talk) 06:53, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
 * It is impossible to prove that some bunch of irregulars (Habiru is not an ethnic designation) could not have made the trek of several thousand miles (walking from Meluhha to Abhira country is still a considerable distance), but the idea is extremely unlikely and such speculation is pointless. --Lambiam 10:16, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Lambiam, what has a point or is pointless depends on a person's values. I don't like the way you are talking. Now, you for example seem to place a high value on barnstars, which is your option but not mine l....also you are mixing your opinion on likelihood with your opinion on pointlessness.Rich (talk) 19:37, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
 * The number of such potential questions is endless. Could the Perizzites have migrated to India and become the Purus? Yes. Is there any reason to think that the Purus were orginally Perizzites? No. Could the Argippaeans have migrated to Ireland and become the Cíarraige? ... --Lambiam 11:32, 31 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Thor Heyerdahl was similarly obsessed with the idea of early long-distance migration by sea, which he proved might have been possible, but his theories have found little acedemic support. Alansplodge (talk) 15:52, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
 * It's not at all related but many acedemics like the common people will be traveling long-distance often by air in fact, so for similar reasons - logistics - if they ever did Abhira would have rather traced their link by land I think --Askedonty (talk) 21:27, 31 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Thor Heyerdahl was almost uniquely wrong-headed for someone who received a lot of favorable publicity, and wasn't simply dismissed as a crackpot. There's ample evidence (in linguistic affiliations and introduced plants and animals) for Polynesian migrations from the west, but Heyerdahl insisted on positing South American migrations from the east.  Polynesians and Micronesians are known for their long-distance sailing voyages, while pre-Columbian seamanship on the western coast of South America was mostly coast-hugging rafts, but that didn't bother Heyerdahl in the slightest... AnonMoos (talk) 01:20, 1 June 2023 (UTC)
 * And the idea of Egyptians crossing the Atlantic in reed boats to help the Inca build their pyramids is just plain bonkers. Alansplodge (talk) 15:00, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Also a successful challenging of other sometimes very popular theories like remaining from those of Ignatius L. Donnelly, see by Lyon Sprague de Camp, Lost Continents --Askedonty (talk) 15:50, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Nonsense or connection?
I saw a video on YouTube. It was uploaded sometime after the 2023 Nashville school shooting. In the video, Savannah Chrisley was seen making some sort of a statement, and crying. What does the tragedy have to do with her?2603:7000:8641:810E:338:32DA:589A:8A1B (talk) 10:48, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
 * It made her sad. Blueboar (talk) 10:54, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
 * She's a somewhat famous person who has lived in the area. Being interviewed/commenting about the event is fairly expected.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 11:00, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Was she scared her young niece, Chloe, may have attended the school where the tragedy occurred?2603:7000:8641:810E:338:32DA:589A:8A1B (talk) 23:24, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Or maybe she merely emotionally distraught by the deaths of young children. Humans are capable of being sad, even if they don't personally know the people.  It's called empathy.  -- Jayron 32 11:18, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Empathy might be in short supply in Brooklyn. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:58, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Küfeci
The internet has multiple stories of Turkish küfeci workers who in the 1960s allegedly carried too drunken patrons (who couldn't walk) in baskets from bars to home. However, reliable sources that I found only mention küfeci workers as basketcarriers who carried out the coal to the surface in the Ottoman Empire (more generally they were the unskilled workers who formed the vast majority of the total workforce). The only book source that I found mentioning them as drunkard carriers is this one. Could it be a hoax or a joke? Brandmeistertalk  14:42, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Did you see the Snopes article? fiveby(zero) 14:54, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
 * (ec) Küfeci's primary meaning is porter, and comes from "küfe", meaning a (wicker) basket and the suffix "ci", which denotes a profession or trade in Turkish (e.g. elektrikci is an electrician). So a küfeci is someone whose work involves carrying a basket. I have no idea if the ones you mention carrying drunk patrons from bars really existed or are an urban legend, but the word will refer first of all to a classic porter, like the coal porters you also mention. Xuxl (talk) 14:57, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the Snopes article. Good they tackled this meme. Brandmeistertalk  15:15, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
 * You can use küfelik in present-day Turkish for someone too drunk to walk by themselves. While I don't know if there is any truth to the notion that in bygone times porters were actually employed by bars to carry such "basket cases" home, I can imagine that from time to time their services were sought in lieu of a cab service. --Lambiam 19:32, 29 May 2023 (UTC)