The Story of Clocks and Calendars Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I am using this book in a math-through-history course I teach for all ages, including my own children, along with a similar book by Betsy Maestro, The Story of Money. These books are beautifully illustrated, with "denser" text than a picture book, and they fit a need for middle-grade level materials. I enjoy the simplicity of the text and stories, and find I can read these aloud to interested children of even younger ages if I can abridge the text and use the illustrations to advantage. Yet the material cannot be considered light, I learned a lot of history I never knew about before reading these books, and it whetted my own appetite to investigate the topic deeper. A great compliment to this book would be Marilyn Burns' This Book is About Time.

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Travel through time with the maestros as they explore the amazing history of timekeeping!

Did you know that there is more than one calendar? While the most commonly used calendar was on the year 2000, the Jewish calendar said it was the year 5760, while the Muslim calendar said 1420 and the Chinese calendar said 4698. Why do these differences exist? How did ancient civilizations keep track of time? When and how were clocks first invented?

Find answers to all these questions and more in this incredible trip through history.

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Egyptian Calendar (German Edition) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)When I first opened this book to read I was immediately struck by the great amount of technical detail. As a person who reads highly technical data on a daily basis, and considering myself a serious aficionado of ancient Egypt, I was still encumbered.
This book is a VERY scholarly work and intended, I'm sure, for the most serious students of Egyptology (since it has been translated into other languages for such purposes). While the title and cover are catchy, this book is written in the format of a high-end college thesis. Unless you are familiar with concepts such as "Sothic Cycle, Heliacal Rise and Epagomenoi," along with an understanding of Egyptian mythology and basic astronomy (concepts such as planetary retrograde movement, angular velocity, etc.), you may find this work difficult. On the other hand, if you want to dive into the expansive detail of real scientific astronomy linked to the Egyptian calander (probably the most serious Egyptophile... with LOTS of time on your hands) this may be for you. The ancient Egyptian calendar is pivotal to the stability of their belief system.
This book brings together some of the most exhaustive research on the subject from THE most prominent Egyptological resources. The basis for much of this volume is the reverse side of the Ebers Papyrus (a beautiful hieratic facsimile of the small section is provided). The previous thoughts of this tiny "list of months" has been minimal. Von Bomhard brings together the structure of the sliding "gliding" year, points of where latitude reference may have been and compared it against other astronomical monuments from Egypt. The end result is an incredibly strong argument that both the fixed and mobile year were used and accounted for displacement of dates and "feast days", so important to the Egyptians. A durable calender meant to last for eternity.
Basis for rating:
1) Scientific content 5-Stars
2) Ease of reading2.5 to 3-Stars
3) Illustrations4-Stars
A technical masterpiece that could have reached a larger audience had it been presented in a clearer fashion. Without question, the best research on the Egyptian calendar to date.

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