Traditional incense length

A wick is half an hour, which is our current 1 hour. In addition, what needs to be mentioned here is that "a column of incense" and "a wick of incense" are different. "A stick of incense"? It's five minutes.

The ancients needed to borrow sundial, clepsydra and other tools for timing, and burning incense was a relatively simple and commonly used timing method. In fact, due to the influence of many factors, such as environment, wind, the length of incense, the dryness and wetness of spices, the burning time of a wick is not exactly the same, usually about half an hour, that is, one hour. In ancient times, in addition to a wick of incense, you can also use a plate of incense and a furnace of incense to time.

In ancient times, fragrant powder was often stamped into fixed fonts or patterns with molds, which was called "fragrant seal". For example, in the Tang and Song Dynasties, some people pounded spices into powder, mixed them evenly and scattered them on copper plates. When they start burning from one end of the printing plate, the whole incense seal will be burned out in order to keep time. People also carved scales on the incense seal, dividing a day and night into 100 scales. This kind of incense, also called Hundred Carved Incense, is often used as a timer in temples.

In ancient times, the time of burning incense was used to measure time, which was widely circulated among the people. In addition to the time unit of "one incense" and "one column of incense", there is also a bag of cigarettes and a cup of tea. One pack of cigarettes is very short, about 5 minutes.

In the past, people who had no money made their own pipes from bamboo poles or tree roots, put some tobacco in the small holes on them, and then they could smoke. You can usually smoke three or four cigarettes, so many people like to use "a pack of cigarettes" to time. There is also a cup of tea, which the ancients liked very much. The time for a cup of tea is about 10 minutes or 15 minutes.