A sundial is a device for measuring time by the Sun; it is one of the simplest chronometric devices, which is designed based on the daily movement of the Sun, and in rare cases, the annual movement. It is the oldest scientific measuring instrument, which has not undergone significant changes, passing through the centuries to the present day. A sundial is a device into which all the available knowledge of ancient man regarding the movement of celestial bodies was invested.
The oldest known sundial was created around 1500 BC. e. They were a stone clock in the form of a block, the length of which was approximately 30 cm, equipped with a T-shaped pommel installed at one end of the block. Notches were applied to the block, representing unequal intervals. The time was determined by these notches. They were installed horizontally along a plumb line, every morning the T-shaped end was set to the east, in the afternoon it was turned to the west, the shadow obtained from the upper edge was taken as time. Many ancient sundials were "unequal clocks", which were developed by dividing the time from sunrise to sunset into a given number of components. The length of daylight hours changes over the course of a full year; as a result, daylight hours are shorter in winter and longer in summer. Sundials were created with hour lines relative to certain days of the year, which were separated by approximately one month, relative to the days of the equinoxes and solstices.
Written description sundial dates back to 73 BC. e., in the Bible, the twentieth chapter of the Book of Kings, it talks about the sundial of Ahaz, which was an obelisk clock.

The beginning of the Christian era was the moment when the principle of the inclined gnomon was discovered; this led to the creation of “equal clocks”, which made it possible to determine more exact time. When installing the gnomon rod on the celestial pole, the rod represented an axis parallel to the equator of the circle, which is the circle of revolution of the Sun. This circle was divided into 4 equal parts, which made it possible to create hours of equal duration. Sundials of precise and uniform order came to represent an exclusively geometric and trigonometric activity. The development of mathematics and astronomy contributed to the improvement of sundials. Very for a long time The creation of such watches was carried out by masters who knew gnomonics. In the XIV-XVIII centuries. Pocket sundials were produced quite widely high precision, which are considered the pearl of world watchmaking. Almost until the 18th century. solar chats were used to store time. Then, along with the development of mechanical watches, sundials also developed, which were created to establish average time. With the introduction of standard time, sundials were also oriented towards standard time. In the XIX-XX centuries. Accurate sundials were developed to measure standard time, mean solar time on a fixed meridian; such clocks were called heliochronometers.

To install the sundial there is special place, for which its latitude, position relative to the horizon and the meridian where the hour lines will be located are determined.
The main parts of a sundial are the dial, which is a surface with applied hour lines, and the gnomon, designed to cast a shadow. The edge of the gnomon indicating the time, in mandatory installed on the celestial pole, was called the “pointer”.

The height of the pointer corresponds to the angle of inclination of the pointer to the dial. The center of the dial is the point of radial divergence of the hour lines and is the point of intersection of the pointer with the plane of the dial.

On the sign is special point, called a node, the shadow from the node is intended to measure altitude, declination, azimuth, and time.

Time is determined by the sun in three ways:

1) time measurement is based on the hour angle from the meridian, used in ordinary garden sundials;

2) consists of measuring the height above the horizon;

3) measuring altitude by azimuth, i.e. by the angle located between the direction to the south point and the vertical circle moving through the Sun, is measured in the horizon plane; also, to measure azimuth, a vertical pointer at the gnomon is required.

Many stationary sundials tell time based on the way the hour angle is measured. The remaining methods are used for portable sundials.

The time is subject to three indication methods: shadow, light point, magnetic needle. The main part of the sundial is characterized by a shadow indication; in rare cases, a light indication is used in stationary clocks; three methods are used only in portable sundials. The magnetic needle is used in two types of sundials. The first includes a watch with hour markers located on a square-shaped compass case, while the case rotates with the disappearance of the shadow on its side faces, then the time is determined by the orientation of the hands. The second type of magnetic sundial is a clock with hour markers located on an elliptical belt that moves relative to the day of the year. This approach is typical for large quantity azimuthal clock, while the body rotates until the shadow disappears on the side faces. Next, following the directions of the arrow, determine the time. A fairly accurate measurement of time using a sundial of this type has been noted. Their disadvantage is the deviation of the magnetic needle from the true direction to the north.

Horizontal sundials have become the most common; they are often installed in city gardens and parks.

The vertical dial is used on clocks mounted on walls that are oriented to the cardinal points. If the walls are not oriented to the cardinal directions, a rotated dial is used.
Inclined and deflected types are designed for multi-sided watches, including 3 or even more dials, such watches are characterized by a cube shape. At the same time, the dials are tilted towards the observer or deviated from the observer. Sundials of this type are placed on the ridges of walls, which are oriented to the cardinal points, or on roofs. Rotated-declined and rotated-inclined dials are designed for installation on buildings that are not oriented to the cardinal points.

Equatorial and polar sundials are equipped with dial planes that are parallel to the equatorial plane and the polar axis, respectively.

Analemmatic equatorial watches were equipped with a hand directed perpendicular to the plane of the hour scale, located not in a plane parallel to the equator, but in horizontal plane, even right on the ground. To measure time using an analemmatic clock, it is necessary to place the hour scale on an elliptic curve and at the same time move the hand in the meridional plane relative to the time of year. Sundials of this type were described in astronomical works of the 16th century, but the use for telling time was developed in detail in mid-18th century V. astronomer Joseph Jarome Lalande, director of the Paris Observatory.
An armillary sundial has an equatorial dial and is equipped with several rings that identify big circles earthly and celestial spheres, the number of which can be in the tens. In this watch, the hour divisions are located in the inner part of the equatorial circle. The clock has a rod showing the polar axis.

Refractive sundials were equipped with a bowl with an hour scale and a shadow hand. The operation is based on the principle of refraction of a light beam passing obliquely onto the plane of separation of two different media.

The bowl is filled with water to a predetermined height, refraction occurs at the separation of air and water. The resulting refracted beam is directed at a time scale installed in the water, determining time.

Refractive clocks were made in the form of goblets or vessels.

Mirror sundials are created based on the reflection of the sun's ray using a mirror onto a dial that was installed on the wall of the house. For the first time such watches were mentioned by Benedictus in scientific works, which were published in 1754 in Turin. The castle in Olsztyn preserves the dial for the mirror sundial, the creation of which is attributed to Nicolaus Copernicus. Sundials of this type became quite widespread at the beginning of the 17th century.

The Temple of Relics is a special Forge of Empires Great Structure that gives a certain chance of receiving a certain reward during an expedition.

You can only receive a drawing of the Temple as a prize from a chest while passing a point in an expedition or for contributing to the Armed Forces of other players. For helping other players (clicking on the “Help” button), Temple drawings are not given out.

All relics, that is, rewards for expeditions, are divided into three types: ordinary (silver), unusual (gold) and rare (jade). The higher the level of the Temple, the greater the chance of receiving both a relic in general and that it will be rare.

Unusual

Despite the fact that on entry levels Temple, the chance of relics dropping is very small; they begin to appear on the map from its first level. Certainly, most of they will be ordinary or - occasionally - unusual, but to receive rare rewards you will have to pump up the aircraft as much as possible.

What kind of relics are there: what drops from the Temple of Relics

Some players do not place the Temple at all, because they believe that the prizes it allows to collect are too insignificant to spend space and strategic points on it.

You can get an idea of ​​what relics may drop during an expedition from the following table.

Regular(Silver)	Uncommon(Gold)	Rare(Jade)
20 Strategic Points	100 Strategic Points	Farm on the terrace
25 Products (1 type)	200 Products (1 type)	Sacred sundial
5 Light units	10 Robbers	Fountain of Youth
5 Rifle units	Ritual fire	Era Boost Kit
5 Fast units	Tribal area	Upgrade Set
5 Heavy units	Small Pack of Medals	Warehousing of buildings
5 Artillery units
Double drawing
Face of the Ancient
Gate of the Sun God

As you can see, most of the rewards, including even ordinary relics, are quite pleasant and useful bonuses, because neither units, nor goods, nor strategic points are ever superfluous, and in the initial eras they are a good help for development. One of the best prizes is the Terrace Farm, a building that allows you to produce 5 CO per day. But the 2x2 decor of the Face of the Ancient and the Gate of the Sun God practically does not provide any benefit: it is not a scarce resource.

To pick up a relic, you need to click on its icon, which appears on the expedition map.

Be sure to collect all the relics before you move on to the next expedition level, as otherwise they will disappear.

The history of sundials goes back more than one millennium, but exactly when people began to use them is not known for certain. It has been established that in Ancient Egypt, Babylon and China such devices were used earlier than a thousand years BC. The first mention of determining time by the sun's rays using a special device dates back to 1306-1290. BC.

Any sundial has a dial with a scale and clockwise, called a gnomon. Moreover, according to their orientation, sundials are divided into horizontal, vertical and equatorial. There are many modifications of them, such as stepped, ring, plate, mirror, bifilar and others.

A sundial is not necessarily a disk with a perpendicular gnomon. So, the dial can be a hemisphere or a ring. The universal equatorial clock can be used at all latitudes. Their design involves two rings perpendicular to each other and a gnomon. To determine the time, you need to set the latitude on the scale on one of the rings and set the date. Then the watch is rotated around a vertical axis until a dot appears on the dial showing the time. At this moment, one ring is oriented north along the meridian, and the second is parallel to the equatorial plane.

In a horizontal sundial, the plane of the dial is not perpendicular to the gnomon, which must be parallel to the earth's axis and also point to the north, that is, the angle between them is equal to the latitude of the area. Horizontal clocks are convenient and easy to install. To use them at a different latitude, it is enough to change the angle and point the gnomon to the north.

In ancient Egypt they were designed different models a sundial, for example, with a horizontal scale that made an angle of 90 degrees with the plane of the local meridian, and their gnomons were obelisks, the height of which usually reached several meters. In order to find out the time from them, the direction indicated by the shadow of the gnomon was used. Another sundial, called a “step” sundial, had two surfaces inclined to the east and west and divided into levels. As the sun moved, the shadow moved from one stage to another, and time was determined by its length.

In Central Europe, until the 15th century, wall-mounted vertical sundials, the gnomon of which was horizontal, became widespread. True, the accuracy of determining time using them was low.

At the same time, there were several options for travel chronometers, for example, ring sundials. They consisted of two rings, one of which had a hole for the passage of the sun's ray, and the scales of months and hours were applied to the other. There were also plate clocks, the design of which included two, sometimes three, identical plates, rectangular in shape and fastened together, with a compass mounted on the bottom one.

There is a description of medieval octagonal sticks with four through holes in the handles, into which metal rods had to be inserted to determine the time. Around the same time, window chronometers appeared. They were classified as vertical. The principle of operation of the sundial was to use the window of the town hall or temple as a dial with a translucent scale applied. This made it possible to find out the time while indoors. Mirror sundials used a sunbeam reflected by a mirror, which they directed onto the wall of the building where the dial was located.

In this article we will look at the history of the sundial, the first ever created by man. The need to measure time was dictated by the need ancient man follow the changing seasons. The time of sowing, harvesting, and the seasonality of the movement of migratory birds were important for humans.

The history of sundials began when the connection between the location and length of the solar shadow from objects and the position of the Sun in the sky became obvious to man. Several ancient grandiose structures have survived to this day, making it possible to track with amazing accuracy the position of the Sun, stars and Moon in the sky, the rising and setting of celestial objects on each day of the year.

History of the sundial

One of such structures in Europe is Stonehenge, which served very accurate calendar to predict the change of seasons needed to maintain Agriculture, and an observatory for predicting solar and lunar eclipses, apparently necessary for the implementation of religious rites.

The time of its construction, according to scientific research, dates back to 1850 BC.

Huge stone buildings for astronomical observations have been found in different parts of the world: in the territories of Ancient Babylon, Egypt, and China.

The most famous of them are Cleopatra's Needle, now in London, and a giant obelisk near Cairo, built 3000 BC.

The history of sundials originates in Assyria and Babylon. The Babylonians achieved great success in astronomy and mathematics.

One of the instruments needed for astronomical observations was a hemispherical sundial, which they also adapted to determine night time. Twelve constellations known to ancient astronomers, which we now know as “zodiac signs,” appeared in the sky within one hour of each other.

A ball of wire slid across the dial in the shape of a bowl. Around the ball was a circle representing the ecliptic.

Twelve constellations were depicted on it, so that the angular distances corresponded to reality.

Using such an instrument, it was possible to determine the place of the Sun on a wire sphere, if one had knowledge of the position of the daylight in a particular zodiac sign.

This astronomical device made it possible to notice the difference between solar and sidereal time and to compare the travel time of the Sun and constellations along the ecliptic. The comparison was made using a water clock (clepsydra).

Thus, the sundial (gnomon) of Ancient Babylon laid the foundation for the development of an independent branch of science - gnomonics, closely related to astronomy and mathematics.

Museums in Cairo and Berlin contain several ancient instruments for observing the Sun and stars, found during excavations in Egypt.

The most early mention in Egyptian manuscripts about a sundial dates back to 1521 BC, although this does not mean that they were not used there before that time.

Egyptian sundials of that period determined time by the length of the gnomon's shadow.

We know about sundials in Ancient Judea from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. When King Hezekiah asks God for a sign, God answers him through his Prophet: “Behold, I will return back ten steps the shadow of the sun, which passed along the steps of Ahaz. And the sun returned ten steps along the steps on which it descended.” (Isaiah 38:8)

So, what were the “Steps of Ahaz”?

Researchers Holy Scripture They believe that this is nothing more than a sundial, the design of which Ahaz borrowed from the Assyrians and Babylonians.

According to the same researchers, they consisted of a column standing on a hill, from which steps went down, which were divisions, and the time was determined by the fall of the shadow on them. The reign of King Ahaz was 873-852 BC.

In China, the gnomon has been used to determine the seasons since the 8th century BC.

In Guizhou County, archaeologists have found a jade sundial dating back to the 3rd century BC. Due to the peculiarities of calculating time, the history of sundials in China is quite original.

It was a disk made of stone with a gnomon installed in the center.

On both sides of the disk there was a scale, near the divisions of which the names of the 12 Chinese double watches were written.

The time from the spring to autumn equinox was measured along the upper part of the disk, and from the autumn to spring equinox along the lower part.

However, the history of sundials in Greece is not so clear: there is an opinion that already in the 10th century BC. Sundials were brought to Greece from the Assyrian or Babylonian Kingdom. There is no doubt that the sundial was borrowed from the Babylonians, which, given the trade relations of that time, is not surprising.

In the 3rd century BC. In Greece, hemispherical sundials were used, in which the inclination of the hemisphere repeated the inclination of the ecliptic at the latitude of the place where it was made.

IN ancient Greece made significant progress in astronomy and mathematics. The conical sundial was invented based on Apollonius' theory of conic sections.

The essence of this clock is that the axis of the concave segment of the cone is parallel to the Earth's axis.

The cone is directed in the same direction as the horizontal gnomon.

On the main, south-facing side of the sundial there was a dial located perpendicular to the conical axis and parallel to the equator. Hour lines were drawn through the arcs divided into 12 equal parts.

The falling shadow crossed these arcs, and by the points of intersection one could find out what time it was. Several conical sundials are now kept in the Louvre.

Flat sundials appeared as a result of improvements to conical ones. Such a clock with a vertical dial was installed on the tower so that it could be seen from afar what time it was. This is how the first solar ones appeared. In Athens, on the Tower of the Winds, there is perhaps the oldest vertical sundial that has survived to this day. In general, this tower itself is unique in that it is the first meteorological station. There was a weather vane on the roof, there was a water clock on the roof itself, and on the façade there was the first sun tower clock.

In Rome, the first sundial appeared in 292 BC. As a result of the First Punic War and after its end, the Romans conquered the Greek islands and the watches were taken from there as a trophy. However, because of this, they showed the time of the place where they were made. Very soon, sundials became an integral part of Roman life. They were installed in squares, near churches and other public places.

In Piazza Montecitorio in Rome you can still see one of the oldest obelisks with a sundial. Installed during the time of Emperor Augustus on the Campus Martius, it was removed from the square during the decline of the empire, but was found in 1463 and reinstalled in 1792.

The Romans began to install and use sundials for various household needs. So, they were used to regulate the entrance to the baths.

Clocks appeared in private villas and portable sundials that could be taken with you on the road. They took into account the time difference in major cities- Rome, Alexandria and others. There were also sundials for all latitudes, of which two copies have survived to this day.

The Romans brought little to the development of gnomonics; they used what the Greek masters did.

At the beginning of the Middle Ages in Europe, only sundials and water clocks were used.

Around the 13th century. they come into use there hourglass,

which, being an alternative to water ones, became widespread by the beginning of the 14th century.

In Byzantium, in the Middle Ages, vertical sundials were popular. They were placed on the facades of monasteries, towers, public buildings and temples. For the first time, numbers are shown on dials. Due to the popularity of camp watches, the profession of a watchmaker appears. The astrolabe of Hipparchus is being improved. At the same time, Arab craftsmen learned from the Byzantines how to make sundials and waterdials. The development of gnomonics in India and the Muslim Middle East in the Middle Ages gives rise to the study of trigonometry, geometry and mathematics. Hindus actively use the Pythagorean theorem and other knowledge borrowed from the Hellenes in their calculations.

The development of trigonometry among the Arabs was led by the appearance of translations of the works of Ptolemy and the Indian “siddhantas”.

After the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, all the mosques, which were often converted into Orthodox Temples, installed a sundial. They determined the time of prayers, and a line was drawn on the dial indicating the direction to Mecca.

Observatories were built in Baghdad and Damascus.

Having adopted from the Byzantines the art of creating astrolabes and goniometric instruments, water and sundials, Muslim scientists achieved great success in improving them.

In Europe, one of the first people to show interest in gnomonics was Pope Silverst II. After reading Boethius's books on geometry and astronomy, where the main types of clocks of that time were described, he wrote a treatise on geometry, where he outlined the basic rules for constructing a sundial. Thanks to him, Europe learned about the structure and use of the astrolabe. It was the 10th century AD.

In XII - XIII centuries Arabic astronomical tables and treatises were translated into Latin language. Gnomonics continued its development in Europe.

The translation of Greek texts in the 14th century contributed to a new interest in science and in gnomonics, as its particular direction. At the end of the 14th century. Europe switched to a new time system based on equal daytime and nighttime hours. And it was very important step for the entire history of watches. It was necessary to modernize the sundial for this time count.

In the 16th century, sundials were installed on the facades of public buildings and Cathedrals, towers and walls. They are already adapted to measure equal hours. Portable sundials, including those combined with a compass, are gaining popularity. In the XVI -XVIII centuries They are still quite popular, but as mechanical watches become cheaper and improve, their use begins to gradually decline. As we see, the history of sundials includes various time periods in the development of gnomonics: from Ancient world, through the era of antiquity and the Middle Ages until the 14th century, when the increasingly popular mechanical watches began to gradually replace solar watches.

However, in our time it has become fashionable to decorate parks, boulevards and public gardens with sundials.

Sundial of Sevastopol.

So, for example, in 2008, for the 225th anniversary of the city, a sundial was installed on the Primorsky Boulevard of Sevastopol, near the Monument to Sunken Ships, which undoubtedly became a decoration of the city. They attract the attention of numerous tourists and townspeople. The dial is lined with multi-colored tiles, and the shadow of a small gnomon shows the time quite accurately.

Sundial

Nowadays, the question “What time is it?” does not cause any particular difficulties, because you always have with you wrist watch or the time is set to mobile phone. But these objects are the property of our time, but how did they determine time in ancient times?

It is not known exactly when the sundial appeared. The first mention of a device that measures time using the sun's rays dates back to the period 1306 - 1290 BC. In ancient Egypt, a description of a device that measured time using the sun's rays was found in one of the tombs. The sundial of that period was a rectangular platform (plate) with markings. At one end of the rectangle, a short long bar was attached, which served as a clock hand.

The Cairo Museum houses other types of ancient sundials. The design of these watches is slightly different. Unlike a flat platform, the base of this clock consists of two inclined planes with steps. One inclined plane was installed to the east, the second to the west. In the first half of the day, the shadow slid along the first plane, descending along the steps, as if along divisions, and in the second part it moved to the second plane.

The name of the inventor of the sundial remains unknown; moreover, it is not known in which country the first solar time devices appeared. The right of primacy is disputed by: Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome and China.

In Chinese sources, the first mention of a sundial dates back to 1100 BC. The design of the Chinese sundial consisted of a stone disk, which was installed parallel to the celestial equator. A rod passed through the center of the disk. The line of the rod was parallel to the earth's axis. Chinese craftsmen also created a small sundial that contained a compass.

The ancient Greeks had a hemispherical sundial - skafis; over time, the design of the sundial underwent many changes. Many treatises were written by Arab astronomers on the intricacies of the structure of sundials. On the dials of Arabic sundials, another line was marked - the qibla, indicating the direction to Mecca. The time when the shadow of the gnomon (the vertical pole that acts as the hour hand in a sundial) fell on the qibla line was considered sacred.

There are several main types of sundial designs: equatorial, horizontal, vertical and analemmatic.

In a vertical sundial, the dial is, accordingly, located in a vertical position, and the gnomon (hour hand) is set depending on the latitude of the area where the clock is installed and the azimuth of the wall where it will be located. Vertical sundials are installed mainly on the facades of buildings.

Horizontal sundials have long been part of landscape design. They are installed in public gardens, parks, and recreation areas as a decorative element. For a watch of this design, the dial has a horizontal position, and the gnomon is set based on the latitude and longitude of the area where the watch will be located.

The dial of an equatorial watch has a scale evenly divided by hour and is placed in the plane of the equator. The equatorial clock includes the armillary sphere - a clock that follows the structure of the solar system.

Stationary sundials have smaller models. In ancient times, Indian travelers took a staff with a sundial with them on their travels. Holes were made in the staff and a rod was inserted, which, when the staff was in a vertical position, cast a shadow on the markings.

Today, despite the abundance of mechanical and electronic time media, interest in sundials has not faded. For example, in 1977, Queen Elizabeth II of England received a magnificent sundial as a gift. The design of the watch is a sculptural composition: two dolphins support the dial, lifted by the sea wave. The author of this amazing sundial is Christopher Daniel.

Installing a sundial requires some knowledge of astronomy and geography. For each locality, the design of the dial and gnomon is calculated separately. Without these calculations, the sundial loses its functionality, turning into simply an original element of landscape design.