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Description

Cadell writes on sundials and the division of time between sunrise and sunset into twelve hours, a practice used by the ancient Greeks and Romans. He studies sundials held in the British Museum collections, some part of the Elgin Marbles, analysing in particular how the hour lines are drawn.

Corrections and annotations appear throughout in graphite and ink.

Subject: Anthropology

Marked as received by the Royal Society on 18 July 1830 with the initials PMR [Peter Mark Roget]. Read 23 December 1830.

Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society as 'On the hour lines of the ancients'.

Reference number
AP/10/4
Earliest possible date
1830
Physical description
Ink on paper
Page extent
14 pages
Format
Manuscript

Creator name

William Archibald Cadell

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Citation

William Archibald Cadell, Unpublished paper, 'On the hour lines of the ancients' by W A [William Archibald] Cadell, 1830, AP/10/4, The Royal Society Archives, London, https://makingscience.royalsociety.org/items/ap_10_4/unpublished-paper-on-the-hour-lines-of-the-ancients-by-w-a-william-archibald-cadell, accessed on 14 June 2026

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  • Archived Papers

    The 'Archived Papers' collection is comprised of original manuscript scientific papers and letters submitted to the Royal Society which remained unpublished or were abstracted in the journal 'Proceedings of the Royal Society' published from 1830 onwards.

    Dates: 1768 - 1989

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