Sundial

Sundial. . A sundial is a "sun clock" and is the oldest instrument used to measure time. Its origins go back to ancient Egyptians and Babylonians, and Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and others later made improvements over thousands of years. It was the most important and accurate means of telling time until the 1700s. Clocks and watches then began to replace sundials, and were popular because they didn't require a sunny day to operate; many were still set to the sundial for accuracy, however. By the early 1800s, they were accurate enough that they had supplanted sundials as the most common means of keeping time., The basic components of the sundials we see most often are a flat plate with numbers corresponding to the hours of the day, the gnomon (or pointer), which is set at an angle on the plate, and sunshine. Installing the sundial parallel to the earth's axis, with the gnomon pointing to true north, means the shadow of the gnomon can mark the time of day., By the era of our period garden, sundials were used mostly for decoration rather than for actual timekeeping, and frequently accented both public and private gardens, where they were popular features. Many were quite fancy, with inscriptions such as: , Time began in a garden. , Let others tell of storms and showers, I'll only mark your sunny hours. , Time flies and stays not an hour.. The sundial in Grandmother's Flower Garden, an elaborate perpetual calendar, says:, I count none but golden hours..