Robert Hannah

This is a very short book dealing with topics like calendars and sundials. The general reference to "antiquity" in the title is a bit misleading; this is really a book about Greece and Rome, with the Near East referred to only when relevant for the classical world rather than treated in its own right. So that was a bit disappointing, but there's still a lot of useful information here. The writing is generally quite accessible; I found it particularly helpful that he tended to explain calculations in parentheses, which made processing a lot quicker: "...we find that eight solar years amount to 2,922 days (365 1/4 x 8)", for example. I did have a bit of trouble following some of his discussion about sundials, though. Hannah has written another entire book treating calendars in particular, and I think that probably accounts for why I found the calendar section better than the sundial section.

Overall, I can't say I loved this book, but I found it worth reading. And I'm not aware of other similar books dealing with the same topic, so if you're interested in time in antiquity, this is probably the place to start.… (meer)