I was waiting outside the auction house killing time while my auction buddy Janet paid for her purchases. It was hot, about 80+, but I wanted to breathe in fresh air rather than stand inside and wait.
I moved among white cast iron patio chairs, two rusted lions sitting on their haunches, an oversized rooster and a couple of birdbaths with little birdies perched on the edges.
Then I came upon a sundial. I’d seen sundials at auctions and antique shows before but I had never really looked at them. With a little time on my hands, I decided to stop and actually examine this one. It had a white circular flat face with embossed wording and numbers that were hard to read. It looked as if it had been painted over and over again, but rust was finally sneaking through.
Near the edge of the pointed dial that resembled a triangle was an inscription. I learned later that this was the sundial’s motto – an aphorism left by the maker:
“Be As True To Each Other As This Dial Is To The Sun.”
The text and numbers on the sundial were in a circle around the triangle: The closest were the months, then the days and then the minutes. Near the edge were roman numerals in bigger type but not necessarily in order.
I had no idea how a sundial was supposed to work, so I tried to figure it out on my own. The day was Sunday, June 26, 2011. Time: I didn’t check my watch at the time but it was around 10 or 10:30 a.m.
For some reason, I thought time-telling on a sundial had something to do with the shadow cast by the triangle. On this one, the shadow cut across the month of May but the number 26 for the day was not among those listed. This sundial was way off – if I was doing it right.
Then I wondered if the triangle should be pointed in a certain direction. The dial had navigational directions of NE, SW and others. The point of the triangle seemed to be facing west. That didn’t mean much to me, though.
Intrigued about how the sundial worked, I later Googled it. Sundials allow you to tell time by the position of the sun. That thing I kept calling a triangle was actually a gnomon (pronounced “no-Mon”), which casts a shadow that creates what is called the sundial’s style. Sundials record solar time and not necessarily clock time.
Sundials were the easiest way to tell time before clocks and watches were invented. Most sundials we have in our yards are the decorative horizontal type. If you’d like to see if you can tell time using yours, try this method, although it may not be altogether accurate. In my research, I found that it’s not very simple to figure out. The explanations took me back to my science classes of the earth rotating around the sun while turning on its axis. Here’s a more detailed explanation.
Determine what your true north or south is depending on whether you live in the Southern or Northern Hemisphere. It can be either at the equator. Set the tip of the gnomon in that direction (the angle of the gnomon’s backside, by the way, should be the latitude of your location). As the sun rises, passes over you and sets, its shadow will rotate around the gnomon clockwise and you should be able to tell time by its position.
Like just about anything else, vintage and antique sundials have their own organizations (American and British) and their share of collectors. Here’s a collection at the National Maritime Museum in London.
In his Poor Richard’s Almanac in 1757, Ben Franklin showed how to install a striking sundial in a yard or garden using guns, gunpowder and glass. The sun’s rays would set off the gunpowder, causing the guns to fire. It was apparently all in good fun or to make a point about excessiveness.
