The early medieval twenty-four chen 辰 or jiashi 加時 displayed as a clockface
Résumé
Early medieval twenty-four chen or jiashi typical of an armillary equatorial ring, as per Qu Anjing 曲安京. “Zhongguo gudai lifa zhong de jishi zhidu” 中國古代曆法中的計時制度. Hanxue yanjiu 漢學研究 12, no. 2 (1994): 157–72. The twenty-four chen/jiashi are an extension of the twelve “earthly-branch” (dizhi 地支) “double-hours,” ziα, chouβ, yinγ, maoδδ… haiμ, between which are inserted the eight non-medial “heavenly stems” (tiangan 天干), jiaa, yib, bingc, dingd, gengg, xinh, reni, guij, and, in the “four corners” (siwei 四維), the Book of Changes trigrams Qian 乾 ☰, Kun 坤 ☷, Gen 艮 ☶, and Xun 巽 ☴. In later geomancy, or fengshui, this configuration is known as the “twenty-four mountains” (ershisi shan 二十四山). The clock hands represent the position of the sun and moon at noon (local apparent time), full moon day. Note that I have flipped this diagram upside-down so that the modern reader might feel more comfortable reading this with north/midnight at the top.
