HOW TO STUDY

‘SCIENTIFIC’
DOCUMENTS
Ashleigh Harrison
Alima Khan
EXAMPLE 2: RECOMBINING SOURCES: THE
RAMESSIDE STAR CLOCK TABLES
Benefit Problems
There is a consensus that all four sources are drawn
from the same original data
 Occasionally more than one star symbol is depicted
Allows the possibility of a positional observation record per row, and often, the star symbols are placed
that could allow stars to be identified with some ambiguously between vertical lines instead of sitting
certainty directly on a vertical line

 Some parts are damaged

 Symons questions the reconstruction of the available

data by Neugebauer and Parker
EXAMPLE 3: INTERPRETING THE
PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF INSTRUCTIONS:
THE L-SHAPED SUNDIAL
 Problems

• Textual sources conflicting with material evidence.

• Borchardt’s hypothesis suggests the addition of a crossbar to the top of

the gnomon to increase accuracy.

• However, the surviving objects do not have one, nor does the hieroglyph
representing a sundial.

• His suggestion comes from the translation of the sundial text from the
Book of Nut.
• Without a crossbar, a shadow could not be cast on the shadow
catching surface for most of the day and not at all in winter.
Symons’ suggestions

• Translation makes no astronomical sense without Borchardt’s physical

assumption of the addition of the crossbar.

• Based on the objects we have, it would require the translation to be wrong

or not clear.

• Application of modern bias- comes from a need to divide time keeping

equally.

• Symons rejects this hypothesis of the need to increase accuracy, explaining

that the unequal marks are a convenient rule for making a sundial.