Did this inspire His Dark Materials 'golden compass'?

Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials books tell of a special instrument that enables its bearer to see the truth.

The Oxford author's inspirations for the compass-like gadget, known as an alethiometer, are among the array of dials and devices at the city's History of Science Museum.

One of them, a beautiful brass dial, bears an uncanny resemblance to the contraption used by the saga's heroine, Lyra Belacqua.

"There are a lot of points of comparison between the two," agrees Dr Sumner Braund, curator of founding collections.

The museum is home to Lyra's Worlds, an exhibition featuring props and costumes from the BBC and HBO adaptation of the original book trilogy.

Within the alethiometer prop's display case is the much older device, which Braund says is a "very similar shape... we've also got a dial that spins and some really elaborate and carefully done engravings".

The ornate instrument operated as a timekeeper.

Its user would use its built in compass to orientate themselves northwards, and then its string - now missing - would reveal the time via the sun's shadow.

Braund says: "It can fit in the palm of your hand. It's an octagon shape, and the brass has been worked so that it looks as if you're holding a golden object.

"It's beautifully engraved with scrolls and vines on the top leaf, and the bottom leaf has a compass at the centre with a needle that spins, as well as some fleur-de-lis.

"In every way this is something that tells you the time but it's also a beautiful object just to have."

The makers of such things "always appreciated the really profound project that they were a part of, which was to understand the world around them," she says.

"If the world is beautiful your instrument should be beautiful too."

When asked what makes its literary truth-telling counterpart so special, the curator suggests: "It provides many possible answers, and so your interpretation of it is just as significant as the questions that you're asking it.

"That is a model of science that was true in the past and true today, so looking around our museum you can really see the inspiration is not just in the objects, but also the questions."

Pullman released the third volume in The Book of Dust series - the follow up to His Dark Materials - in October.

The Rose Field marks the final book in his two trilogies about Lyra.

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