The Poetics of Women’s Scars in the Prose of Сan Xue

On one of Turkish towers of the outer front of Akkerman Fortress a vertical sundial with a southeast orientation was installed in the last quarter of the 15th century. This is one of the earliest examples of Islamic sundials, which survived in the territory of the former Ottoman Empire. The tower sundial performed a public function and regulated the daily religious life of the city. It was installed and adjusted in December. The tower was erected specifically for the subsequent placement of this device on its façade, that is why the Ottomans called it the “Clock tower”. The Akkerman sundial had two gnomons to indicate the time of the beginning of two afternoon prayers – the noon Zuhr and the evening Asr. The designer of the device was interested in fixing the time for prayers (religious time) according to the canonical recommendations of the hadiths and the Hanafi mazhab. It was impossible to determine the beginning of the Asr prayer in the period from September 3 to April 8 due to the south-east orientation of the sundial. However, throughout the year it was possible to fix the time of the noon prayer, and orient oneself in the days of the equinoxes and solstices. In 1796, the public sundial of Akkerman was damaged. Another slab was installed on the tower over the marble cadran with dismantled gnomons, there was the tugra of Sultan Selim III on it, but it was also removed from the façade in the first quarter of the 19th century.