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Prime meridian
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"Prime Meridian" redirects here. For the meridian often called the Prime Meridian, see Prime meridian (Greenwich).
0°
Prime Meridian
A prime meridian is a meridian (a line of longitude) in a geographic coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. Together, a prime meridian and its antimeridian (the 180th meridian in a 360°-system) form a great circle. This great circle divides the sphere, e.g., Earth, into two hemispheres. If one uses directions of East and West from a defined prime meridian, then they can be called the Eastern Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere.
Gerardus Mercator in his Atlas Cosmographicae (1595) uses a prime meridian somewhere close to 25°W, passing just to the west of Santa Maria Island in the Atlantic. His 180th meridian runs along the Strait of Anián (Bering Strait)
A prime meridian is ultimately arbitrary, unlike an equator, which is determined by the axis of rotation—and various conventions have been used or advocated in different regions and throughout history.[1] The most widely used modern meridian is the IERS Reference Meridian. It is derived but deviates slightly from the Greenwich Meridian, which was selected as an international standard in 1884.
Contents
[hide]
1 History
2 List of prime meridians on Earth
3 International prime meridian
3.1 Prime meridian at Greenwich
3.2 IERS Reference Meridian
3.2.1 List of places
4 Prime meridian on other planetary bodies
5 See also
6 Notes
7 Citations
8 Works cited
9 External links
History[edit]
See also: History of longitude
Ptolemy's 1st projection, redrawn under Maximus Planudes around 1300, using a prime meridian east of Africa
The notion of longitude was developed by the Greek Eratosthenes (c. 276 BC – c. 195 BC) in Alexandria, and Hipparchus (c. 190 BC – c. 120 BC) in Rhodes, and applied to a large number of cities by the geographer Strabo (64/63 BC – c. 24 AD). But it was Ptolemy (c. AD 90 – c. AD 168) who first used a consistent meridian for a world map in his Geographia.
Ptolemy used as his basis the "Fortunate Isles", a group of islands in the Atlantic which are usually associated with the Canary Islands (13° to 18°W), although his maps correspond more closely to the Cape Verde islands (22° to 25° W). The main point is to be comfortably west of the western tip of Africa (17.5° W) as negative numbers were not yet in use. His prime meridian corresponds to 18° 40' west of Winchester (about 20°W) today.[2] At that time the chief method of determining longitude was by using the reported times of lunar eclipses in different countries.
Diogo Ribeiro's map of 1529, now in the Vatican library
Ptolemy's Geographia was first printed with maps at Bologna in 1477, and many early globes in the 16th century followed his lead. But there was still a hope that a "natural" basis for a prime meridian existed. Christopher Columbus reported (1493) that the compass pointed due north somewhere in mid-Atlantic, and this fact was used in the important Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494 which settled the territorial dispute between Spain and Portugal over newly discovered lands. The Tordesillas line was eventually settled at 370 leagues west of Cape Verde. This is shown in Diogo Ribeiro's 1529 map. São Miguel Island (25.5°W) in the Azores was still used for the same reason as late as 1594 by Christopher Saxton, although by then it had been shown that the zero magnetic deviation line did not follow a line of longitude.[3]
1571 Africa map by Abraham Ortelius, with Cabo Verde prime meridian
In 1541, Mercator produced his famous 41 cm terrestrial globe and drew his prime meridian precisely through Fuertaventura (14°1'W) in the Canaries. His later maps used the Azores, following the magnetic hypothesis. But by the time that Ortelius produced the first modern atlas in 1570, other islands such as Cape Verde were coming into use. In his atlas longitudes were counted from 0° to 360°, not 180°W to 180°E as is usual today. This practice was followed by navigators well into the 18th century.[4] In 1634, Cardinal Richelieu used the westernmost island of the Canaries, Ferro, 19° 55' west of Paris, as the choice of meridian. The geographer Delisle decided to round this off to 20°, so that it simply became the meridian of Paris disguised.[5]
In the early 18th century the battle was on to improve the determination of longitude at sea, leading to the development of the marine chronometer by John Harrison. But it was the development of accurate star charts, principally by the first British Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed between 1680 and 1719 and disseminated by his successor Edmund Halley, that enabled navigators to use the lunar method of determining longitude more accurately using the octant developed by Thomas Godfrey and John Hadley.[6] Between 1765 and 1811, Nevil Maskelyne published 49 issues of the Nautical Almanac based on the meridian of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. "Maskelyne's tables not only made the lunar method practicable, they also made the Greenwich meridian the universal reference point. Even the French translations of the Nautical Almanac retained Maskelyne's calculations from Greenwich—in spite of the fact that every other table in the Connaissance des Temps considered the Paris meridian as the prime." [7]
In 1884, at the International Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C., 22 countries voted to adopt the Greenwich[8] meridian as the prime meridian of the world. The French argued for a neutral line, mentioning the Azores and the Bering Strait, but eventually abstained and continued to use the Paris meridian until 1911.
List of prime meridians on Earth[edit]
Locality
Modern longitude
Meridian name
Comment
Bering Strait 168°30′ W Offered in 1884 as possibility for a "neutral prime meridian" by Pierre Janssen at the International Meridian Conference [9]
Washington, D.C. 77°03′56.07″ W (1897) or 77°04′02.24″ W (NAD 27)[clarification needed] or 77°04′01.16″ W (NAD 83) New Naval Observatory meridian
Washington, D.C. 77°02′48.0″ W, 77°03′02.3″, 77°03′06.119″ W or 77°03′06.276″ W (both presumably NAD 27). If NAD27, the latter would be 77°03′05.194″ W (NAD 83) Old Naval Observatory meridian
Washington, D.C. 77°02′11.56299″ W (NAD 83),[10] 77°02′11.55811″ W (NAD 83),[11] 77°02′11.58325″ W (NAD 83)[12] (three different monuments originally intended to be on the White House meridian) White House meridian
Washington, D.C. 77°00′32.6″ W (NAD 83) Capitol meridian
Philadelphia 75° 10′ 12″ W [13][14]
Rio de Janeiro 43° 10′ 19″ W [15]
Fortunate Isles / Azores 25° 40′ 32″ W Used until the Middle Ages, proposed as one possible neutral meridian by Pierre Janssen at the International Meridian Conference[16]
El Hierro (Ferro),
Canary Islands 18° 03′ W,
later redefined as
17° 39′ 46″ W Ferro meridian [17]
Tenerife 16° 38' 22" W Tenerife meridian Rose to prominence with Dutch cartographers and navigators after they abandoned the idea of a magnetic meridian[18]
Cadiz 6° 17' 40" W San Fernando meridian [19]
Lisbon 9° 07′ 54.862″ W [20]
Madrid 3° 41′ 16.58″ W [20]
Greenwich 0° 00′ 05.3101″ W Greenwich meridian Airy Meridian[21]
Greenwich 0° 00′ 05.33″ W United Kingdom Ordnance Survey Zero Meridian Bradley Meridian[21]
Greenwich 0° 00′ 00.00″ IERS Reference Meridian
Paris 2° 20′ 14.025″ E Paris meridian
Brussels 4° 22′ 4.71″ E [20]
Antwerp 4° 24′ E Antwerp meridian
Amsterdam 4° 53′ E through the Westerkerk in Amsterdam; used to define the legal time in the Netherlands from 1909 to 1937[22]
Bern 7° 26′ 22.5″ E [citation needed]
Pisa 10° 24′ E [13]
Oslo (Kristiania) 10° 43′ 22.5″ E [13][14]
Florence 11°15′ E Florence meridian used in the Peters projection, 180° from a meridian running through the Bering Strait
Rome 12° 27′ 08.4″ E meridian of Monte Mario Used in Roma 40 Datum [23]
Copenhagen 12° 34′ 32.25″ E Rundetårn[24]
Naples 14° 15′ E [16]
Bratislava 17° 06′ 03″ E Meridianus Posoniensis Used by Sámuel Mikoviny
Stockholm 18° 03′ 29.8″ E at the Stockholm Observatory[20]
Kraków 19° 57′ 21.43″ E Kraków meridian at the Old Kraków Observatory at the Śniadecki' College; mentioned also in Nicolaus Copernicus's work On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres.
Warsaw 21° 00′ 42″ E Warsaw meridian [20]
Oradea 21° 55′ 16″ E [25] Between 1464 and 1667, a prime meridian was set in the Fortress of Oradea (Varadinum at the time) by Georg von Peuerbach.[26]
Alexandria 29° 53′ E [27]
Saint Petersburg 30° 19′ 42.09″ E Pulkovo meridian
Great Pyramid of Giza 31° 08′ 03.69″ E 1884 [28]
Jerusalem 35° 13′ 47.1″ E [14]
Mecca 39° 49′ 34″ E see also Mecca Time [29]
Ujjain 75° 47′ E Used from 4th century CE Indian astronomy and calendars(see also Time in India).[30]
Kyoto 136° 14′ E Used in 18th and 19th (officially 1779–1871) century Japanese maps. Exact place unknown, but in "Kairekisyo" in Nishigekkoutyou-town in Kyoto, then the capital.[citation needed]
~ 180 Opposite of Greenwich, proposed 13 October 1884 on the International Meridian Conference by Sandford Fleming [16]
International prime meridian[edit]
In October 1884 the Greenwich Meridian was selected by delegates (forty-one delegates representing twenty-five nations) to the International Meridian Conference held in Washington, D.C., United States to be the common zero of longitude and standard of time reckoning throughout the world.[31][note 1] The modern prime meridian, the IERS Reference Meridian, is placed very near this meridian and is the prime meridian that currently has the widest use.
Prime meridian at Greenwich[edit]
Markings of the prime meridian at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.
Main article: Prime meridian (Greenwich)
The modern prime meridian, based at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, was established by Sir George Airy in 1851.[33]
The position of the Greenwich Meridian has been defined by the location of the Airy Transit Circle ever since the first observation was taken with it by Sir George Airy in 1851.[33] Prior to that, it was defined by a succession of earlier transit instruments, the first of which was acquired by the second Astronomer Royal, Edmond Halley in 1721. It was set up in the extreme north-west corner of the Observatory between Flamsteed House and the Western Summer House. This spot, now subsumed into Flamsteed House, is roughly 43 metres to the west of the Airy Transit Circle, a distance equivalent to roughly 0.15 seconds of time.[21] It was Airy's transit circle that was adopted in principle (with French delegates, who pressed for adoption of the Paris meridian abstaining) as the Prime Meridian of the world at the 1884 International Meridian Conference.[34][35]
All of these Greenwich meridians were located via an astronomic observation from the surface of the Earth, oriented via a plumb line along the direction of gravity at the surface. This astronomic Greenwich meridian was disseminated around the world, first via the lunar distance method, then by chronometers carried on ships, then via telegraph lines carried by submarine communications cables, then via radio time signals. One remote longitude ultimately based on the Greenwich meridian using these methods was that of the North American Datum 1927 or NAD27, an ellipsoid whose surface best matches mean sea level under the United States.
IERS Reference Meridian[edit]
Main article: IERS Reference Meridian
Satellites changed the reference from the surface of the Earth to its centre of mass around which all satellites orbit regardless of surface irregularities. The requirement that satellite-based geodetic reference systems be centred on the centre of mass of the earth caused the modern prime meridian to be 5.3" east of the astronomic Greenwich prime meridian through the Airy Transit Circle. At the latitude of Greenwich, this amounts to 102 metres.[36] This was officially accepted by the Bureau International de l'Heure (BIH) in 1984 via its BTS84 (BIH Terrestrial System) that later became WGS84 (World Geodetic System 1984) and the various ITRFs (International Terrestrial Reference Systems).
Due to the movement of Earth's tectonic plates, the line of 0° longitude along the surface of the Earth has slowly moved toward the west from this shifted position by a few centimetres; that is, towards the Airy Transit Circle (or the Airy Transit Circle has moved toward the east, depending on your point of view) since 1984 (or the 1960s). With the introduction of satellite technology, it became possible to create a more accurate and detailed global map. With these advances there also arose the necessity to define a reference meridian that, whilst being derived from the Airy Transit Circle, would also take into account the effects of plate movement and variations in the way that the Earth was spinning.[37] As a result, the International Reference Meridian was established and is commonly used to denote Earth's prime meridian (0° longitude) by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, which defines and maintains the link between longitude and time. Based on observations to satellites and celestial compact radio sources (quasars) from various coordinated stations around the globe, Airy's transit circle drifts northeast about 2.5 centimetres per year relative to this Earth-centred 0° longitude. Circa 1999 the international reference meridian (IRM) passed 5.31 arcseconds east of Airy's meridian or 102.5 metres (336.3 feet) at the latitude of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, London.[38][39][40][41] It is also the reference meridian of the Global Positioning System operated by the United States Department of Defense, and of WGS84 and its two formal versions, the ideal International Terrestrial Reference System (ITRS) and its realization, the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF).[38][39][40] A current convention on the Earth uses the opposite of the IRM as the basis for the International Date Line.
List of places[edit]
Map all coordinates using: OpenStreetMap · Google Maps
Download coordinates as: KML · GPX
On Earth, starting at the North Pole and heading south to the South Pole, the IERS Reference Meridian (as of 2016) passes through:
Co-ordinates
(approximate)
Country, territory or sea
Notes
90°0′N 0°0′E / 90.000°N 0.000°E / 90.000; 0.000 (North Pole)
Arctic Ocean
81°39′N 0°0′E / 81.650°N 0.000°E / 81.650; 0.000 (Greenland Sea)
Greenland Sea
72°53′N 0°0′E / 72.883°N 0.000°E / 72.883; 0.000 (Norwegian Sea)
Norwegian Sea
61°0′N 0°0′E / 61.000°N 0.000°E / 61.000; 0.000 (North Sea)
North Sea
53°45′N 0°0′E / 53.750°N 0.000°E / 53.750; 0.000 (United Kingdom)
United Kingdom
From Tunstall in East Riding to Peacehaven, passing through Greenwich
50°47′N 0°0′E / 50.783°N 0.000°E / 50.783; 0.000 (English Channel)
English Channel
49°19′N 0°0′E / 49.317°N 0.000°E / 49.317; 0.000 (France)
France
From Villers-sur-Mer to Gavarnie
42°41′N 0°0′E / 42.683°N 0.000°E / 42.683; 0.000 (Spain)
Spain
From Cilindro de Marboré to Castellón de la Plana
39°56′N 0°0′E / 39.933°N 0.000°E / 39.933; 0.000 (Mediterranean Sea)
Mediterranean Sea
Gulf of Valencia
38°52′N 0°0′E / 38.867°N 0.000°E / 38.867; 0.000 (Spain)
Spain
From El Verger to Calpe
38°38′N 0°0′E / 38.633°N 0.000°E / 38.633; 0.000 (Mediterranean Sea)
Mediterranean Sea
35°50′N 0°0′E / 35.833°N 0.000°E / 35.833; 0.000 (Algeria)
Algeria
From Stidia to Algeria-Mali border near Bordj Mokhtar
21°50′N 0°0′E / 21.833°N 0.000°E / 21.833; 0.000 (Mali)
Mali
14°59′N 0°0′E / 14.983°N 0.000°E / 14.983; 0.000 (Burkina Faso)
Burkina Faso
11°6′N 0°0′E / 11.100°N 0.000°E / 11.100; 0.000 (Togo)
Togo
For about 600 m
11°6′N 0°0′E / 11.100°N 0.000°E / 11.100; 0.000 (Ghana)
Ghana
For about 16 km
10°57′N 0°0′E / 10.950°N 0.000°E / 10.950; 0.000 (Togo)
Togo
For about 39 km
10°36′N 0°0′E / 10.600°N 0.000°E / 10.600; 0.000 (Ghana)
Ghana
From the Togo-Ghana border near Bunkpurugu to Tema
Passing through Lake Volta at 7°48′N 0°0′E / 7.800°N 0.000°E / 7.800; 0.000 (Lake Volta)
5°37′N 0°0′E / 5.617°N 0.000°E / 5.617; 0.000 (Atlantic Ocean)
Atlantic Ocean
Passing through the Equator at 0°0′N 0°0′E / 0.000°N 0.000°E / 0.000; 0.000 (Equator) ("Null Island")
60°0′S 0°0′E / 60.000°S 0.000°E / -60.000; 0.000 (Southern Ocean)
Southern Ocean
68°54′S 0°0′E / 68.900°S 0.000°E / -68.900; 0.000 (Antarctica)
Antarctica
Queen Maud Land, claimed by Norway
Prime meridian on other planetary bodies[edit]
See also: Longitude (planets)
"Prime meridian (planets)" redirects here. It is not to be confused with Central meridian (planets).
As on the Earth, prime meridians must be arbitrarily defined. Often a landmark such as a crater is used; other times a prime meridian is defined by reference to another celestial object, or by magnetic fields. The prime meridians of the following planetographic systems have been defined:
Two different heliographic coordinate systems are used on the Sun. The first is the Carrington heliographic coordinate system. In this system, the prime meridian passes through the center of the solar disk as seen from the Earth on 9 November 1853, which is when Richard Christopher Carrington started his observations of sunspots.[42] The second is the Stonyhurst heliographic coordinates system.
The prime meridian of Mercury is defined to be 20° east of the crater Hun Kal.[43]
The prime meridian of Venus passes through the central peak in the crater Ariadne.[44]
The prime meridian of the Moon lies directly in the middle of the face of the moon visible from Earth and passes near the crater Bruce.
The prime meridian of Mars passes through the center of the crater Airy-0, although it is fixed by the longitude of the Viking 1 lander, which is defined to be 47°.95137 west.[45].
Jupiter has several coordinate systems because its cloud tops—the only part of the planet visible from space—rotate at different rates depending on latitude.[46] It is unknown whether Jupiter has any internal solid surface that would enable a more Earth-like coordinate system. System I and System II coordinates are based on atmospheric rotation, and System III coordinates use Jupiter's magnetic field.
Titan, like the Earth's moon, always has the same face towards Saturn, and so the middle of that face is 0 longitude.
Pluto's prime meridian is defined as the center of the face that is always pointed towards Charon, its largest moon, as the two are tidally locked towards each other.
See also[edit]
Geography portal
1st meridian east
1st meridian west
Notes[edit]
Jump up ^ Voting took place on 13 October and the resolutions were adopted on 22 October 1884.[32]
Citations[edit]
Jump up ^ Prime Meridian, geog.port.ac.uk
Jump up ^ Norgate & Norgate 2006
Jump up ^ Hooker 2006
Jump up ^ e.g. Jacob Roggeveen in 1722 reported the longitude of Easter Island as 268° 45' (starting from Fuertaventura) in the Extract from the Official log of Jacob Roggeveen reproduced in Bolton Glanville Corney, ed. (1908), The voyage of Don Felipe Gonzalez to Easter Island in 1770-1, Hakluyt Society, p. 3, retrieved 13 January 2013
Jump up ^ Speech by Pierre Janssen, director of the Paris observatory, at the first session of the Meridian Conference.
Jump up ^ Sobel & Andrewes 1998, pp. 110–115
Jump up ^ Sobel & Andrewes 1998, pp. 197–199
Jump up ^ "The Prime Meridian at Greenwich". Royal Museums Greenwich. n.d. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
Jump up ^ International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. Project Gutenberg
Jump up ^ NGS 2016, PID: HV1847.
Jump up ^ NGS 2016, PID: HV1846.
Jump up ^ NGS 2016, PID: AH7372.
^ Jump up to: a b c Hooker (2006), introduction.
^ Jump up to: a b c Oct. 13, 1884: Greenwich Resolves Subprime Meridian Crisis, WIRED, 13 October 2010.
Jump up ^ Atlas do Brazil, 1909, by Barão Homem de Mello e Francisco Homem de Mello, published in Rio de Janeiro by F. Briguiet & Cia.
^ Jump up to: a b c "The Project Gutenberg eBook of International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day". Gutenberg.org. 12 February 2006. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
Jump up ^ Ancient, used in Ptolemy's Geographia. Later redefined 17° 39′ 46″ W of Greenwich to be exactly 20° W of Paris. French "submarin" at Washington 1884.
Jump up ^ A.R.T. Jonkers; Parallel meridians: Diffusion and change in early modern oceanic reckoning, in Noord-Zuid in Oostindisch perspectief, The Hague, 2005, p. 7. Retrieved 2 February 2015.
Jump up ^ , [1], in El País, 2016, retrieved 23 December 2016.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e Bartky, Ian R. (2007), One Time Fits All: The Campaigns for Global Uniformity, p. 98, retrieved through GoogleBooks, 6 May 2014.
^ Jump up to: a b c Dolan 2013a.
Jump up ^ (in Dutch)Eenheid van tijd in Nederland (Unity of time in the Netherlands), Utrecht University website, retrieved 28 August 2013.
Jump up ^ Grids & Datums – Italian Republic, asprs.org, Retrieved 10 December 2013.
Jump up ^ meridian, article from Den Store Danske Encyklopædi
Jump up ^ Oradea, Tourism office website, retrieved 3 February 2015.
Jump up ^ "Romanian astronaut makrsk 10th anniversary of Prime Meridian Astronomy Club". NineO'Clock.ro. 2015. Retrieved 26 June 2017.
Jump up ^ The meridian of Ptolemy's Almagest.
Jump up ^ Wilcomb E. Washburn, "The Canary Islands and the Question of the Prime Meridian: The Search for Precision in the Measurement of the Earth Archived 29 May 2007 at the Wayback Machine."
Jump up ^ Maimonides, Hilchot Kiddush Hachodesh 11:17, calls this point אמצע היישוב, "the middle of the habitation", i.e. the habitable hemisphere. Evidently this was a convention accepted by Arab geographers of his day.
Jump up ^ Burgess 1860
Jump up ^ "International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. Protocols of the proceedings". Project Gutenberg. 1884. Retrieved 30 November 2012.
Jump up ^ Howse 1997, pp. 12, 137
^ Jump up to: a b Greenwich Observatory ... the story of Britain's oldest scientific institution, the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and Herstmonceux, 1675–1975 p.10. Taylor & Francis, 1975
Jump up ^ McCarthy, Dennis; Seidelmann, P. Kenneth (2009). TIME from Earth Rotation to Atomic Physics. Weinheim: Wiley-VCH. pp. 244–5.
Jump up ^ ROG Learning Team (23 August 2002). "The Prime Meridian at Greenwich". Royal Museums Greenwich. Royal Museums Greenwich. Retrieved 14 June 2012.
Jump up ^ Malys, Stephen; Seago, John H.; Palvis, Nikolaos K.; Seidelmann, P. Kenneth; Kaplan, George H. (1 August 2015). "Why the Greenwich meridian moved". Journal of Geodesy. 89 (12): 1263. Bibcode:2015JGeod..89.1263M. doi:10.1007/s00190-015-0844-y.
Jump up ^ Dolan 2013b.
^ Jump up to: a b History of the Prime Meridian -Past and Present
^ Jump up to: a b IRM on grounds of Royal Observatory from Google Earth Accessed 30 March 2012
^ Jump up to: a b The astronomic latitude of the Royal Observatory is 51°28'38"N whereas its latitude on the European Terrestrial Reference Frame (1989) datum is 51°28'40.1247"N.
Jump up ^ Guinot, B., 2011. Solar time, legal time, time in use. Metrologica 48, S181–S185.
Jump up ^ "Carrington heliographic coordinates".
Jump up ^ Archinal, B. A.; A’Hearn, M. F.; Bowell, E.; Conrad, A.; Consolmagno, G. J.; Courtin, R.; Fukushima, T.; Hestroffer, D.; Hilton, J. L.; Krasinsky, G. A.; Neumann, G.; Oberst, J.; Seidelmann, P. K.; Stooke, P.; Tholen, D. J.; Thomas, P. C.; Williams, I. P. (23 October 2010). "Report of the IAU Working Group on Cartographic Coordinates and Rotational Elements: 2009" (PDF). Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy. 109 (2): 15. Bibcode:2011CeMDA.109..101A. doi:10.1007/s10569-010-9320-4.
Jump up ^ "USGS Astrogeology: Rotation and pole position for the Sun and planets (IAU WGCCRE)". Retrieved 22 October 2009.
Jump up ^ Archinal, B.A.; Acton, C.H.; A’Hearn, M.F.; Conrad, A.; et al. (2018), "Report of the IAU Working Group on Cartographic Coordinates and Rotational Elements: 2015", Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy, 130 (22), doi:10.1007/s10569-017-9805-5 CS1 maint: Explicit use of et al. (link)
Jump up ^ "Planetographic Coordinates". Retrieved 24 May 2017.
Works cited[edit]
Burgess, Ebenezer (1860), "Translation of the Surya-Siddhanta", Journal of the American Oriental Society (e book), 6, Google (published c. 2013), p. 185
Dolan, Graham (2013a). "The Greenwich Meridian before the Airy Transit Circle". The Greenwich Meridian.
Dolan, Graham (2013b). "WGS84 and the Greenwich Meridian". The Greenwich Meridian.
Hooker, Brian (2006), A multitude of prime meridians, retrieved 13 January 2013
Howse, Derek (1997), Greenwich Time and the Longitude, Phillip Wilson, ISBN 0-85667-468-0
Norgate, Jean; Norgate, Martin (2006), Prime meridian, retrieved 13 January 2013
NGS datasheet station name form, National Geodetic Survey, 2016, retrieved 11 December 2016
Sobel, Dava; Andrewes, William J. H. (1998), The Illustrated Longitude, Fourth Estate, London
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Prime meridian.
"Where the Earth's surface begins—and ends", Popular Mechanics, December 1930
scanned TIFFs of the conference proceedings
Prime meridians in use in the 1880s, by country
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text:
Mesoamerican ballcourt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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"Ballcourt" redirects here. For courts on which other ball games are played, see Court (disambiguation) § Architecture.
Ceramic sculpture from a Western Mexican tomb showing players engaged in the Mesoamerican ballgame.
A Mesoamerican ballcourt is a large masonry structure of a type used in Mesoamerica for over 2,700 years to play the Mesoamerican ballgame, particularly the hip-ball version of the ballgame.[1] More than 1,300 ballcourts have been identified, 60% in the last 20 years alone.[when?][2] Although there is a tremendous variation in size, in general all ballcourts are the same shape: a long narrow alley flanked by two walls with horizontal, vertical, and sloping faces. Although the alleys in early ballcourts were open-ended, later ballcourts had enclosed end-zones, giving the structure an -shape when viewed from above.
Ballcourts were also used for functions other than, or in addition to, ballgames. Ceramics from western Mexico show ballcourts being used for other sporting endeavours, including what appears to be a wrestling match.[3] It is also known from archaeological excavations that ballcourts were the sites of sumptuous feasts, although whether these were conducted in the context of the ballgame or as another event entirely is not as yet known.[4] The siting of the most prominent ballcourts within the sacred precincts of cities and towns, as well as the votive deposits found buried there, demonstrates that the ballcourt were places of spectacle and ritual.
Contents
[hide]
1 Distribution
2 Size and shape
2.1 Evolution
2.2 Walls and surfaces
2.3 Orientation
3 Rings, markers, and other features
4 Maya stairs
5 Notes
6 Image gallery
7 References
Distribution[edit]
Ballgame court at Monte Albán
One of the ballcourts at Xochicalco. Note the characteristic -shape, as well as the rings set above the apron at center court. The setting sun of the equinox shines through the ring.[5]
Although ballcourts are found within most Mesoamerican sites, they are not equally distributed across time or geography. For example, the Late Classic site of El Tajin, the largest city of the ballgame-obsessed Classic Veracruz culture, has at least 18 ballcourts while Cantona, a nearby contemporaneous site, sets the record with 24. In contrast, Northern Chiapas[6] and the northern Maya Lowlands[7] have relatively few, and ballcourts are conspicuously absent at some major sites, including Teotihuacan, Bonampak, and Tortuguero.[8]
It is thought that ballcourts are an indication of decentralization of political and economic power: areas with a strong centralized state, such as the Aztec Empire, have relatively few ballcourts while areas with smaller competing polities have many.[9] At Cantona, for example, the extraordinary number of ballcourts is likely due to the many and diverse cultures residing there under a relatively weak state.[10]
Size and shape[edit]
Ballcourts vary considerably in size. One of the smallest, at Tikal site, is only one-sixth the size of the Great Ballcourt at Chichen Itza. Despite the variation in size, ballcourts' playing alleys are generally the same shape, with an average length-to-width ratio of 4-to-1, although some regional variation is found: Central Mexico, for example, has slightly longer playing alleys, and the Maya Northern Lowlands slightly wider.[11]
The following is a comparison of the size of the playing alleys for several well-known ballcourts.[12]
Site
Culture
length (meters)
width (meters)
length-to-width ratio
Xochicalco Xochicalco 51 9 5.7
Monte Alban Zapotec 26 5 5.2
El Tajin Classic Veracruz 126 25 5.1
Chichen Itza (Grand Ballcourt) Maya 96 30.4 3.2
Tikal (Small ceremonial) Maya 16 5 3.2
Yaxchilan II Maya 18 5 3.6
Tula Toltec 41 10 4.1
Evolution[edit]
The earliest ballcourts were doubtless temporary marked off areas of compacted soil much like those used to play the modern ulama game, the Mesoamerican ballgame's descendant.
Ballcourt terminology. Not all ballcourts have all these surfaces.
Paso de la Amada, Soconusco, along the Pacific coast boasts the oldest ballcourt yet identified, dated to approximately 1400 BC.[13] This narrow ballcourt has an 80 m × 8 m (262 ft × 26 ft) flat playing alley defined by two flanking earthen mounds with "benches" running along their length.
By the Early Classic, ballcourt designs began to feature an additional pair of mounds set some distance beyond the ends of the alley as if to keep errant balls from rolling too far away. By the Terminal Classic, the end zones of many ballcourts were enclosed, creating the well-known -shape.
The evolution of the ballcourt is, of course, more complex than the foregoing suggests, and with over 1300 known ballcourts, there are exceptions to any generalization.
Open ballcourts (i.e. without endzones) continued to be constructed into the Terminal Classic and at smaller sites.
Some ballcourts featured only one enclosed endzone (the so-called T-shape) while some ballcourts' endzones are of different depths.[14]
During the Formative period, some enclosed ballcourts were entirely rectangular, without endzones.[15] One such court, at La Lagunita in the Guatemala Highlands, features rounded side walls.
Cross sections of some of the more typical ballcourts. Jacinto Quirarte has classified Copan, Uxmal, and Xochicalco at Type I, Monte Alban as Type II, Chichen Itza as Type III, and Toluquilla as Type IV.
Walls and surfaces[edit]
Unlike the compacted earth of the playing alley, the side walls of the formal ballcourts were lined with stone blocks. These walls featured 3 or more horizontal and sloping surfaces. Vertical surfaces are less common, but they begin to replace the sloping apron during the Classic era, and are a feature of several of the largest and best-known ballcourts, including the Great Ballcourt at Chichen Itza and the North and South Ballcourts at El Tajin. There the vertical surfaces were covered with elaborate reliefs showing scenes, particularly sacrificial scenes, related to the ballgame.
Orientation[edit]
Most prominent ballcourts were part of their town or city's central monumental precinct and as such they share the orientation of pyramids and other structures there. Since many Mesoamerican cities and towns were oriented to a few degrees east of north (roughly 15° east of north),[16] it is not surprising to find that in the Valley of Oaxaca, for example, ballcourt orientations also tend to be a few degrees east of north, or at right angles to that.[17]
Other than this general trend, no consistent orientation of ballcourts throughout Mesoamerica has been found,[18] although some patterns do emerge at the regional level. In the Cotzumalhuapa region, for example, open-ended ballcourts with a north-south orientation were earlier than east-west enclosed courts.[19]
Court marker from the Mayan site of Lubaantun showing two players volleying. Note the rounded bottom that anchors the marker into the court.
Rings, markers, and other features[edit]
Stone rings, tenoned into the wall at mid-court, appeared in the Terminal Classic era. Actually sending a ball through the ring must have been a rare occurrence. The players could not use their hands or even feet to guide the ball. Moreover, the rings were only slightly larger than the ball itself and were located at no small distance from the playing alley. At Chichen Itza, for example, they were set 6 meters above the alley, while at Xochicalco they set at the top of an 11-meter-wide apron, 3 meters above the playing alley (see lead photo).[20]
As shown on Aztec codices, court markers were also used on many ballcourts to establish the dividing line between teams – one set into the playing alley floor at exact mid-court, the other two placed against each side wall. However, such placement is not universal. Two ancient ceramic ballcourt models recovered from western Mexico show the three markers placed length-wise along the court: one (again) at exact mid-court with the remaining pair set midway between the walls at either end of the playing alley.[21] The ballcourt markers at Copan are also arranged in this manner. The ballcourt at Monte Alban, meanwhile, has only one court marker, placed at the exact center of the court.
These sunken court markers are almost invariably round and usually decorated with ballgame-related scenes or iconography. Other markers were set into ballcourt walls.[22] Many researchers have also proposed that above-ground, moveable objects, for example stone hachas, were also used as court markers.[23]
Various sculptures, stelae, and other stonework were also important components of the ballcourt. At the ballcourt at Tonina, for example, 6 sculptures of prone captives overhang the apron, a pair at mid-court and a pair at each of the ends of the cornice. Unfortunately, rings, markers and sculptures are more portable and more prone to removal or destruction than the permanent ballcourt infrastructure, and at some ballcourts these features have been lost forever.
Against a backdrop of three stairs, a Maya ballplayer drops on his right knee to meet an exaggeratedly large ball. From a Maya Central Lowlands vase, 650–800 AD.
Maya stairs[edit]
Many – or even most – Maya depictions of ballgame play are shown against a backdrop of stairs.[24] Conversely, Maya staircases will occasionally feature reliefs of ballgame scenes or ballgame-related glyphs on their risers. The most famous of these are the Hieroglyphic Stairs at Structure 33 in Yaxchilan, where 11 of the 13 risers feature ballgame-related scenes. In these scenes, it appears as if the players were actually playing the ball against the stairs in what would seem to be a Maya version of stoop ball.
The association of stairs and the ballgame is not well understood. Linda Schele and Mary Miller propose that the depictions record historic events and in particular record a "form of play ... distinct from the game conducted on the courts", one that "probably followed immediately after[ward] on steps adjacent to the ballcourts".[25] Other researchers are skeptical. Marvin Cohodas, for example, proposes that the "stairs" are instead stepped platforms associated with human sacrifice,[26] while Carolyn Tate views the Yaxchilan stair scenes as "the Underworld segment of a cosmogram".[27]
Notes[edit]
Jump up ^ Cohodas states that the masonry courts were used "exclusively" for the hip-ball game.
Jump up ^ Taladoire, p. 98. Note that there are slightly over 200 ballcourts also identified in the American Southwest which are not included in this total, since these are outside Mesoamerica and there is significant discussion whether these areas were used for ballplaying or not.
Jump up ^ Day, p. 69.
Jump up ^ Zender, p. 10, who cites John Gerard Fox (1996) "Playing with Power" in Current Anthropology.
Jump up ^ Uriarte, p. 23.
Jump up ^ Taladoire and Colsenet.
Jump up ^ Kurjack, Maldonado C., Robertson.
Jump up ^ Taladoire, p. 99.
Jump up ^ Santley et al., p. 14.
Jump up ^ Day, p. 76, and Taladoire, p. 114.
Jump up ^ Quirarte, p.209-210.
Jump up ^ Quirarte, p. 205-208.
Jump up ^ See Hill, Blake, and Clark (1998); Schuster (1998).
Jump up ^ Chinkultic's northern endzone is 3 times as deep as the southern endzone, perhaps due to the stairs gracing the northern end. Taldoire and Colsenet, p. 169.
Jump up ^ Quirarte. Taladoire refers to this type as a palangana-style ballcourts, after the Spanish word for basin (p. 106).
Jump up ^ Aveni and Gibbs. Other researchers give other estimates or averages, but there is a remarkable consistency across time and space to this general orientation.
Jump up ^ Kowalewski et al., p. 38.
Jump up ^ Taladoire.
Jump up ^ Parsons, p. 200.
Jump up ^ Quirarte.
Jump up ^ Kelley, p. 97. An example of a Western Mexico ceramic court (without court markers, alas) can be seen here.
Jump up ^ Whittington, p. 168-169, shows a fine example of a parrot head from Xochicalco.
Jump up ^ The Hudson Museum, University of Maine website and the British Museum website, among other sources.
Jump up ^ Schele and Miller (p. 247) say that "most" Maya depictions of ballgame action include stairs.
Jump up ^ Schele and Miller, p. 247.
Jump up ^ This is only a brief summary of Cohodas' viewpoint – for a full version, see p. 264.
Jump up ^ Tate, p. 97.
Image gallery[edit]
One of two Mesoamerican ballgame courts at Cobá
The Tehuacalco Mesoamerican ball court
Yagul Ball Court
poc-ta-tok field, Mexico
References[edit]
A ring at Chichen Itza. This ring was set some 6 meters (20 feet) above the playing alley, making it extremely difficult to pass the heavy ball through the hole.
Aveni, Anthony F.; Sharon L. Gibbs (1976). "On the Orientation of Precolumbian Buildings in Central Mexico". American Antiquity. Menasha, WI: Society for American Archaeology. 41 (4): 510–517. ISSN 0002-7316. JSTOR 279020. OCLC 1479302. doi:10.2307/279020.
Cohodas, Marvin (1991). "Ballgame imagery of the Maya Lowlands: History and Iconography". In Vernon Scarborough and David R. Wilcox (eds.). The Mesoamerican Ballgame. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. pp. 251–288. ISBN 0-8165-1360-0. OCLC 51873028. CS1 maint: Extra text: editors list (link)
Day, Jane Stevenson (2001). "Performing on the Court". In E. Michael Whittington (ed.). The Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame (Published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name organized by the Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC ed.). New York: Thames & Hudson. pp. 65–77. ISBN 0-500-05108-9. OCLC 49029226. CS1 maint: Extra text: editors list (link)
Fox, John W. (1991). "The Lords of Light versus the Lords of Dark: The Postclassic Highland Maya Ballgame". In Vernon Scarborough and David R. Wilcox (eds.). The Mesoamerican Ballgame. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. pp. 213–238. ISBN 0-8165-1360-0. OCLC 51873028. CS1 maint: Extra text: editors list (link)
Gillespie, Susan D. (1991). "Ballgames and Boundaries". In Vernon Scarborough and David R. Wilcox (eds.). The Mesoamerican Ballgame. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. pp. 317–345. ISBN 0-8165-1360-0. OCLC 51873028. CS1 maint: Extra text: editors list (link)
Hill, Warren D.; Michael Blake; John E. Clark (1998). "Ball court design dates back 3,400 years". Nature. London and New York: Nature Publishing Group. 392 (6679): 878–879. ISSN 0028-0836. OCLC 204441622. doi:10.1038/31837.
Kelley, J. Charles (1991). "The Known Archaeological Ballcourts of Durango and Zacatecas, Mexico". In Vernon Scarborough and David R. Wilcox (eds.). The Mesoamerican Ballgame. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. pp. 87–100. ISBN 0-8165-1360-0. OCLC 51873028. CS1 maint: Extra text: editors list (link)
Kowalewski, Stephen A.; Gary M. Feinman; Laura Finsten; Richard E. Blanton (1991). "Pre-Hispanic Ballcourts from the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico". In Vernon Scarborough and David R. Wilcox (eds.). The Mesoamerican Ballgame. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. pp. 25–44. ISBN 0-8165-1360-0. OCLC 51873028. CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)CS1 maint: Extra text: editors list (link)
Kurjack, Edward B.; Ruben Maldonado C.; Merle Greene Robertson (1991). "Ballcourts of the Northern Maya Lowlands". In Vernon Scarborough and David R. Wilcox (eds.). The Mesoamerican Ballgame. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. pp. 145–159. ISBN 0-8165-1360-0. OCLC 51873028. CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)CS1 maint: Extra text: editors list (link)
Parsons, Lee A. (1991). "The Ballgame in the Southern Pacific Coast Cotzumalhuapa Region and Its Impact on Kaminaljuyu During the Middle Classic". In Vernon Scarborough and David R. Wilcox (eds.). The Mesoamerican Ballgame. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. pp. 195–212. ISBN 0-8165-1360-0. OCLC 51873028. CS1 maint: Extra text: editors list (link)
Quirarte, Jacinto (1975). "The Ballcourt in Mesoamerica: Its Architectural Development". In Alana Cordy-Collins and Jean Stern (eds.). Pre-Columbian Art History: Selected Readings. Palo Alto, CA: Peek Publications. pp. 63–69. ISBN 0-917962-41-9. OCLC 3843930. CS1 maint: Extra text: editors list (link)
Santley, Robert M.; Michael J. Berman; Rami T. Alexander (1991). "The Politicization of the Mesoamerican Ballgame and Its Implications for the Interpretation of the Distribution of Ballcourts in Central Mexico". In Vernon Scarborough and David R. Wilcox (eds.). The Mesoamerican Ballgame. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. pp. 3–24. ISBN 0-8165-1360-0. OCLC 51873028. CS1 maint: Extra text: editors list (link)
Schuster, Angela M.H. (July–August 1998). "Newsbriefs: Mesoamerica's Oldest Ballcourt". Archaeology. New York: Archaeological Institute of America. 41 (4): 22. ISSN 0003-8113. OCLC 89268419. Retrieved 2007-06-08.
Taladoire, Eric (2001). "The Architectural Background of the Pre-Hispanic Ballgame". In E. Michael Whittington (ed.). The Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame (Published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name organized by the Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC ed.). New York: Thames & Hudson. pp. 97–115. ISBN 0-500-05108-9. OCLC 49029226. CS1 maint: Extra text: editors list (link)
Taladoire, Eric; Benoit Colsenet (1991). "'Bois Ton Sang, Beaumanoir': The Political and Conflictual Aspects of the Ballgame in the Northern Chiapas Area". In Vernon Scarborough and David R. Wilcox (eds.). The Mesoamerican Ballgame. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. pp. 167–174. ISBN 0-8165-1360-0. OCLC 51873028. CS1 maint: Extra text: editors list (link)
Tate, Carolyn E. (1991). Yaxchilan: The Design of a Maya Ceremonial City. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-77041-3. OCLC 23464300.
Uriarte, Maria Teresa (January 2006). "The Teotihuacan Ballgame and the Beginning of Time". Ancient Mesoamerica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 17 (1): 17–38. ISSN 0956-5361. OCLC 88827568. doi:10.1017/S0956536106060032.
Whittington, E. Michael (ed.) (2001). The Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame (Published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name organized by the Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC ed.). New York: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05108-9. OCLC 49029226. CS1 maint: Extra text: authors list (link)
Wilkerson, S. Jeffrey K. (1991). "And Then They Were Sacrificed: The Ritual Ballgame of Northeastern Mesoamerica Through Time and Space". In Vernon Scarborough and David R. Wilcox (eds.). The Mesoamerican Ballgame. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. pp. 45–71. ISBN 0-8165-1360-0. OCLC 51873028. CS1 maint: Extra text: editors list (link)
Zender, Mark (Spring 2004). "Glyphs for "Handspan" and "Strike" in Classic Maya Ballgame Texts" (PDF). The PARI Journal. San Francisco, CA: Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute. 4 (4). ISSN 1531-5398. OCLC 44780248. Archived from the original (PDF online reproduction) on 2008-09-10.
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