Ancestors

Toot

Written by Lizbeth on 2025-01-15 at 13:37

A recent piece of writing on solar time and older ways to keep time by made me look up the history of time keeping on Wikipedia where i found out about incense clocks. There's something really unique about different hours having different smells and this little device with slowly burning intricate paths

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Descendants

Written by Alexander Cobleigh on 2025-01-15 at 14:22

@ritualdust omg wtf that is so cool!!!

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Written by Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK on 2025-01-15 at 14:33

@cblgh @ritualdust coincidentally I recently bought a pack of incense sticks from an Asian grocery shop last time I was in town, and was thinking "these burn at a fairly constant rate, I wonder if they could be (or were) used for timekeeping?

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Written by Mike on 2025-01-15 at 17:52

@vfrmedia @cblgh @ritualdust I've read of people holding the end of one as a meditation timer. I was thinking this morning that I know when it's 9 am by the smell of the neighbor's toast.

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Written by Lizbeth on 2025-01-15 at 18:22

@sunumbral @vfrmedia @cblgh that's a cool idea!

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Written by Luke on 2025-01-15 at 18:35

@vfrmedia @cblgh @ritualdust I read translated novels, and "in the time it takes to burn a stick of incense" is definitely a phrase I've read more than once.

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Written by Gaëlle on 2025-01-15 at 23:13

@Shivaekul and it is supposed to amount to 15 minutes !@vfrmedia @cblgh @ritualdust

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Written by McSquankentine's Day Massacre on 2025-01-19 at 14:24

@vfrmedia @cblgh @ritualdust In the book Shogun, someone purchases the right to speak to the main bigwig for a "stick of time"

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Written by fey :moon_photo: :eclipse2: on 2025-01-15 at 14:32

@ritualdust yeah! I know less about these but they’re pretty amazing

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Written by xander on 2025-01-15 at 16:40

@ritualdust have you heard of genji ko by chance? this reminded me of that: https://www.oranlooney.com/post/genji-ko/

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Written by Jorge Bejarano on 2025-01-15 at 18:10

@ritualdust this is absolutely amazing! 🤩👏👏👏

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Written by Dave Clark on 2025-01-15 at 19:16

@ritualdust adding this to my fantasy world immediately

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Written by Lizbeth on 2025-01-15 at 20:26

@bedirthan that is exactly the first thought i had haha

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Written by Wendy Palmer on 2025-01-19 at 09:29

@ritualdust @bedirthan 😊 I put this in one of my fantasy books (the character is being a wee bit smug because the locals have to rely on things like sundials and incense clocks, and he’s got (IHO) the infinitely superior and more accurate water-clock technology)

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Written by wet forest moon folklorist on 2025-01-15 at 19:24

@ritualdust ive been thinking about timekeeping lately too, in the context of how AI collapses/eradicates time, and it got me thinking of how how our idea of time is usually dependent on the spin of the planet, but i didn't know about other ways of keeping time!

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Written by Paul SomeoneElse on 2025-01-15 at 19:35

One small perspective into this for me, is when a

astro-something scientist tried to explain to me

how difficult time was in calculating things based

on long form time stuff.

Our dates and years are too relative and blunt.

But it's what we have to work with at least to

start. And if you go back you have to translate

into some other cultures time keeping calendar

system.

Like (im making this up) if a comet is recorded in

ancient china and corraborated in ancient idk

lebanon or syria, there cultures have radically

different calendars.

And time becomes relative from so many angles.

culturally, mathematically, historically ...

CC: @ritualdust@merveilles.town

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Written by clarkiestar on 2025-01-15 at 22:43

@ritualdust what a nice idea

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Written by there is beauty in simplicity on 2025-01-15 at 23:38

@ritualdust I would like to have one of these

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Written by smellsofbikes on 2025-01-16 at 03:59

@ritualdust I think @MLE_online would like this

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Written by nff on 2025-01-16 at 07:50

@ritualdust pour molten tin in the mold and make edo-period bluetooth antennas

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Written by cognitively accessible math on 2025-01-16 at 14:13

@ritualdust Oh, this could be a thing. The new pet rock.

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Written by Heliograph on 2025-01-19 at 10:36

@ritualdust @Melissabeartrix you might find that interesting

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Written by myrmepropagandist on 2025-01-19 at 11:46

@ritualdust

I have worked with these kinds of incense and they are VERY hard to manage. Laying the trails and getting an even burn? It takes a lot of skill.

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Written by Meercat ✅ on 2025-01-19 at 12:06

@ritualdust incense clock! Cool idea indeed

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Written by DB Schwein on 2025-01-19 at 22:07

@ritualdust

This is something I've never run across before. How beautiful!

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Written by DB Schwein on 2025-01-19 at 22:23

@ritualdust

Ok first of all "kept time up to a month" and then "the ability to vary the paths of the grooves, to allow for the changing length of the days in the year"!

In the end of the known period for these the British isles were still using sundials! Mechanical clocks took another 100 years, and people try to say the Europeans were the advanced ones 🙄

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