Alphabe Thursday … S is for Sundial

I seem to have been swayed by sundials for a week or two; and so did a little research for this weeks letter; and recycled images from previous weeks

The origin of the sundial has been lost in time; but it is seems the relationship between time and a man’s shadow is always noticed.  So, man himself was the first sundial.  In the same way the direction and length of the shadows of different objects, trees, rocks or buildings would have been associated with the passage of time, both the time of day and the time of year.  

The latter was particularly important, just as it is today,  for a man needed to know the seasons of the year accurately, in order to know when to sow, when to gather in the harvest, when to prepare for the onset of winter and when to expect storms and floods.  

A wooden staff or pole driven into the ground in a vertical position would have been the simplest way for the farmer to discover such information; by the direction and length of its shadow.  

Although most of us think of a sundial as an ornament for the garden rather than a timepiece. It was however vertical wall sundials that were probably more common than any other form of dial and served both to regulate public clocks and to indicate time to passersby.