Time in the Ancient World

Time plays many roles in civic and everyday life: calendars provide a way of regulating activities ranging from gathering taxes to knowing when to perform religious rituals. This course will provide an introduction to the way time was measured, used, regulated and conceived in the ancient world. We will cover topics such as the calendars used in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and China, sundials and other instruments used for measuring time in the ancient world, and the way time is used in scientific and non-scientific texts.