Portable sundial with compass
A portable wooden sundial with a movable brass rod (gnomon) and a compass to correctly determine the direction of the sun. The compass is used to point the instrument to the north, and then the correct angle is set according to the 24 parts of the solar year (jieqi 節氣), using the chambers under the ascending dial of the sundial. The fields of the sundial are marked with the traditional 12 day sections called “earthly branches” (dizhi 地支), while the compass field is divided according to the traditional system, which combines the system of “earthly branches” and “heavenly stems” (tiangan 天干) with the hexagrams and trigrams of the Book of Changes (Yijing 易經). (HM)
Material description: wood, brass, glass
Manufacturing technique: carpentry techniques, metalworking techniques,
Dimensions: width: 9 cm, length: 17.5 cm, height: 2.4 cm
No. of parts: 1
Current owner: Slovene Ethnographic Museum
Date of the last acquisition: 1963
Previous owners and periods of ownership: Ivan Skušek, Jr. and Tsuneko Kondō Kawase - Marija Skušek, National Museum of Slovenia, Slovene Ethnographic Museum
Object condition, handling and damage: fairly well preserved
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