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Babylonian Time

EpochConfidenceAssociated with
SunriseHighBabylon

Overview

Babylonian timekeeping was the timekeeping system used in ancient Babylon. It is the basis for standard timekeeping in modern times.

It divides each day into 12 watches, each two hours long and beginning at sunrise. Each watch is further divided into 30 geš, which are about 4 minutes each.

Some sources further divided the geš into grains, though they rarely agree, providing numbers such as 60 and 72 grains per geš.

Info

UnitDuration
Watch2 hours
Geš4 minutes

Accuracy

This calculation is based on the solar day and is very accurate, but it approximates sunset as 6:00am local time.

Source

Common Sourc

Wikipedia article 1 Wikipedia article 2

Primary Sources

Medium article