Equatorial Sundials in the Ancient World: Construction and Applications

Time is an easy concept on the surface. Most people comprehend the idea of a year, month, week, day, and second. This was not the case for the ancient populations who lived before us. One of the earliest methods for determining time throughout the day was utilizing shadows which were cast from objects. Tall trees, due to their sedentariness, were great tools in early time telling. Ancient people would have observed these shadows much earlier than we have record for. However, the idea of time telling using shadows continued long past the ancient world. Sundials are the tool created to better use the shadows created by the sun rotating around the earth. Trigonometry in ancient Greece established the math to create much more sophisticated sundials. This poster will explore trigonometry in relationship to sundials.https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/ancient_science_fair/1014/thumbnail.jp