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World's oldest known sundial, from Egypt's Valley of the Kings (c. 1500 BC), used to measure work hours. [1] [2] [3]A sundial is a device that indicates time by using a light spot or shadow cast by the position of the Sun on a reference scale. [4]
The reading of an old sundial should be corrected by applying the present-day equation of time, not one from the period when the dial was made. In some sundials, the equation of time correction is provided as an informational plaque affixed to the sundial, for the observer to calculate.
The Romans inherited the sundial from the Greeks. [19] The first sundial in Rome arrived in 264 BC, looted from Catania in Sicily. This sundial offered the innovation of the hours of the "horologium" throughout the day where before the Romans simply split the day into early morning and forenoon (mane and ante merididiem). [20]
Ancient Egyptian sundial (c. 1500 BC), from the Valley of the Kings, used for measuring work hour. Daytime divided into 12 parts. The ancient Egyptians were one of the first cultures to widely divide days into generally agreed-upon equal parts, using early timekeeping devices such as sundials, shadow clocks, and merkhets (plumb-lines used by early astronomers).
A Roman era sundial on display at a museum in Side, Turkey The Romans used various ancient timekeeping devices . According to Pliny , Sundials , or shadow clocks, were first introduced to Rome when a Greek sundial captured from the Samnites was set up publicly around 293-290 BC., [ 2 ] with another early known example being imported from Sicily ...
The gnomon is the triangular blade in this sundial. A gnomon (/ ˈ n oʊ ˌ m ɒ n,-m ə n /; from Ancient Greek γνώμων (gnṓmōn) 'one that knows or examines') [1] [2] is the part of a sundial that casts a shadow. The term is used for a variety of purposes in mathematics and other fields, typically to measure directions, position, or time.
A tide dial, also known as a mass dial [2] or a scratch dial, [3] [4] is a sundial marked with the canonical hours rather than or in addition to the standard hours of daylight. Such sundials were particularly common between the 7th and 14th centuries in Europe, at which point they began to be replaced by mechanical clocks. There are more than ...
Reconstruction of the 2,000 year old Phoenician scaphe sundial found at Umm al-Amad, Lebanon. Greeks and Romans used large stone sundials based on "a partial sphere or scaphe,” the shadow of the tip of the gnomon was the time-telling index. [2]
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