thinkingfish , 2 days ago

My husband has been doing some research on compasses, and he pointed me to a paper [1] that claimed the Chinese character 東 (east) came from a glyph depicting the Indian Circle [2], a simple and precise method to orient oneself by Sun.

This seems much more plausible than the popular explanation, which was the Sun (日) rising from behind a tree (木).

The paper is a fun read if you are into Chinese or geometry, pictures are from the paper.

[1] https://lockwoodonlinejournals.com/index.php/jaos/article/view/796
[2] https://nabataea.net/cinema/navigation-and-the-qibla/navigation-and-the-qibla-5-the-indian-circle/

The tip of the winter gnomon shadow tracked over the course of the day yielding a hyperbolic arc; as above, two intersections with a circular arc centered on the gnomon define the east-west line.