Gfilui

It's hard to come with a single method that both works when you have 5 minutes in a dense forest, and 5 days in a city. But here are some ideas:

• Find out who the current pope is.


• Locate a graveyard (or a church with in-church burial), search for the most recent date on a tomb stone.


• Search through church records (weddings, burials, baptism) for the most recent date. If you've landed (or rather, suspect to be landed) in the 19th, 20th or 21st century, search through city records. (How to get access to those records is left as an exercise for the reader).


• Try to find out what the current art movements are. (This will work better the more you are to current times).


• Availability/scarcity of food in general, or specific foods. Is salt scarce? Is sugar available? How do carrots look like? Do people drink tea? Coffee? Are exotic spices available? If so, how affordable are they?


• If you know (or figured out) where you are: which landmarks are there, and which ones are not there yet?


• What type of clothing do people wear?


• What kind of ships/boats are people using?

• Search for some money: coins were made according to the reigning king, they might give a fair estimate for the period you are in.


• If you are in a major city, take a look at the most recent churches or religious building. Their architectural style can hint to the period.


• Search for potatoes, corn and tomatoes. At least you can tell if you are before or after 1492.


• Search for some soldiers: their weapons and uniform can point you to a time period.


• I would not ask around "which year is this?", as it would be highly suspect. Once you have a rough estimate of the region and the time period, try asking how long has it been since . I.e. if you suspect you are in the South of Italy shortly after the Battle of Canne, try asking "how long ago was the battle of Canne? 5 years?"

There are a few simple technologies that should be very widespread that you can look for. Stirrups (you’re almost certainly in the 8th century or later), chimneys (16th century in ordinary homes), horse collars (10th century), iron horseshoes (12th century), glass windows (17th century in ordinary homes).

You only need to learn the phrase "What year is it?" in Latin. If you can find civilization, you'll most likely find clergy and they can answer your question.

Find the nearest Pub, Tarvern, or Bar.
You only need to play drunk and know one sentense in the different language you encounter.

Now repeat after me and don't worry about the accent you are drunk:

"My Wife is going to kill me! What day/month/year it is?"

And you can also locate yourself with this trick.

My Wife is going to kill me! Where the fuck m'I?"

If there is no bar, pub or tavern.. I don't know what is the worst beeing lost in time or no bar, pub, nor tavern.

You should first make a rough guesstimate of which time period you are in (based on architecture, fashion, tools, etc. that you see), and then go from there:

modern times

If things seem more or less modern, say 18th century or more, look for a newspaper, which should have the current date. Newspapers came into existence in the 17th century, so from the 18th or so onward they should be common enough that you can find one easily.

middle ages

From around the 12th century, figure out where you are, by language. If you seem to be in England or France, or in some place that seems more or less organized, go to the local church and get a look at their records. The middle ages were notoriously beaurocratic and kept an excellent record of births, deaths, marriages, taxes on market stalls, sizes of grounds of each farmer family and a hundred more things. Typically, the local church was the place for these records. They will contain the date somewhere.

early dark ages

Between the downfall of the Roman Empire and the middle ages, things are a bit messy. Your best bet might be tombstones or churches where dates are inscribed and then making a guess on how old they are. This far back, these are likely also the only things that you have a good chance of reading and understanding as what passed for english (or french, spanish, etc.) at that time is not very close to our modern versions. And remember that dates are most likely to be inscribed in roman style (i.e. MMXVIII)

Roman Empire

If it seems that romans are around (look for latin inscriptions on still-in-use buildings, or roman fashion), and you speak a bit of latin or can memorize a few phrases, simply ask for the date. Yes, it might be weird, but Rome was a mix of so many cultures that especially if you seem foreign and speak bad latin, it is quite plausible that you don't know the year by roman reckoning.

Note that you could land in the time of the Roman Empire but outside its borders (Scotland, Scandinavia, Northern Germany, etc.) in which case the section below applies.

antiquity

If you don't see any roman roads around, and it clearly isn't yet the middle ages as well, you are in antiquity. Good luck. There will be almost no writing or inscriptions available, nor will anyone speak something that you would recognize as a language you know, even if it is an ancestor of such. Your best bet is to look at what tools, clothes and building style people have and then make a wild guess.

(for example, you can look if there are iron tools - but iron working was introduced between 1100 BC and 500 BC, depending on which part of Europe you are in - and good luck finding that out.)

You look to the stars.

And look for the Barnard' Star. And the distance from a line you setup at the moment of travel. The thing is that Barnard star travel a "pinky length" every 350 years Observing star for amateur astronomer.

So you just measure the pinkies and approx. the time with +/- 175 years.

you would need some more time than 5 minutes but I assure you that if you get spawned in forest prior to industrialization (and some part of modern times) even 1 day could not be enough to get to any signs of civilization.

Perhaps you could look up, in both Latin and Greek if possible, a question akin to "How many years ago did Jesus Christ come to earth?" With a little convincing, and communication with any member of the church, friar, monk or priest, you would likely be able to play ignorant enough that it would seem like a naive question rather than the ramblings of a madman. Obviously, anyone with any sort of religious education would know Year A.D. = years since Jesus' birth. Would be quick and dirty, plus most of Europe would be within a few days of the nearest religious figure.

Keep in mind, calendars change and are variable. However, the Catholic Church has been pretty solid on having at least internal consistency. If you're dealing with Catholics, Pre-1582 dates should be specified in the Julian Calendar. Since local time systems seem to be acceptable to the wizard, that should work. After 1582 it may be a little shaky, but good God-fearing Catholics will generally be on the Gregorian Calendar. Protestant Europe would be trickier, but then again, Jesus' birth would still be a good milestone, and a decent first-pass guess. Vernacular mass will be a dead giveaway if you're in Protestant country.

Another option would be to get the basic formula of a Catholic Mass down, and pray (haha) that your period of time allows you to get to Mass. I believe Catholic Latin Mass should generally reference the name of the reigning Pope. That gives you a pretty narrow window, for most places and times. And if the mass is being held in NOT Latin, that's a pretty huge hint too.

Not really an answer, but if you are more than 500 or 600 years in the past, the local French or English will be hard for you to understand.

Best case scenario, it will be easier for you to understand a drunken Quebecois or Irishman than someone speaking Middle French or Middle English. And the further you go in time the worst it will be.

During your minutes of prep time, look up how to write "What year is it?" in as many languages as you can think of. You already have a head start because you already know this phrase in four of the most useful languages, so you can try to learn Italian, Latin, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish, Arabic (for the years 711 to 1492), Basque. When you land write them down as soon as you can.

If you're allowed to bring your own paper and a pen, then this is super easy.

The first time you see someone, you can show them the paper and try to sound out words, and give them a chance to write down the answer. If you have an informants that are familiar with one of these languages, and are patient enough to work through your strange pronunciation, spelling, and handwriting, I think this is the method that is most likely to work.

If you can't get any understanding that way, you can start writing down "ANNO DOMINI" next to years written in Roman numerals and Arabic numerals. At this point, you're playing Charades, and I don't know how easy it is to get an answer.

If none of these work, you can start looking for graveyards, and buildings with years written on them.