Timeline of Timelines
February 11th, 02008 by Kevin KellyA very meta service. Cabinet magazine, a hip paper-based journal of unusual ideas, published a chronology of calendars and timelines in history a few years ago. They updated the list for the web. It’s quite comprehensive, and provides in one chronological sequence the major inventions in the art of chronologies. But it could be made more complete and cooly recursive by adding at the end of their timeline, their own creation as the “first timeline of timelines.”
Example:
1753 Jacques Barbeu-Duborg, the French translator and disciple of Benjamin Franklin, creates his Carte chronologique, a 54-foot timeline of history from Creation contained in an wooden case.
February 13th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Correction made due to this comment from Dan. Thanks for sending.
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from Daniel:
Thanks so much for blogging me! It’s really an honor to be mentioned in such company. By the way, the “iron case” bit was inserted by one of my editors and we need to change it on our own site. The scroll you highlight has iron mechanics, but the case is actually wooden. It’s a genuinely amazing artifact. They have one at Princeton and it still works. I’ve used it!
Many thanks,
Dan