Ancient Chinese jade-hunters floating-needle compass

Pitt Rivers project

Photos from the making of my model for the exhibition project at Brookes for the Pitt  Rivers museum in Oxford.  The title is 'Space and Time'.  I was inspired by the compasses and sundials in the museum and the museum of the history of science, so decided to do a piece about  ancient Chinese compasses.  This wooden fish will be the float for a magnetised needle that will be placed in the jar above.  Because it's magnetised, the needle will make the fish point south in the water.  On the outside of the jar are illustrations, two are signs of the zodiac, and all are linked to star constellations.  Each represents a point of the compass according to the Chinese.  It is a very basic, early form of navigation discovered by the Chinese 2000 BC, originally used to align houses, graves and crops to Feng Shui principles.  When it's finished, the bottle/jar will hang from a chain so it can be worn around the neck.