High Middle Ages · East Asia · Science

1279

Guo Shoujing completes the Shoushi calendar

1279

The Yuan court astronomer, using instruments of his own design including a forty-foot-tall gnomon, completed a solar calendar accurate to within twenty-six seconds per year. The Shoushi li was the most precise calendar in the world, adopted across the Mongol empire from Korea to Persia, and remained in use in China for nearly four centuries.