Sun-driven: Telling Time the Ancient Way

By: Lory S. Coronel

Long before the advent of modern day convenience came into the limelight,
people are totally dependent with what the nature provides them. From tides, gust of
wind to the movement of the celestial bodies, ancient people relies on these
breakthroughs to estimate the elapsed time or the preceding length of day. One of
the numerous ways in telling time during such period is utilizing the Sun’s shadows
to approximate the time in relation to Earth’s rotation and the Sun’s movement rising
from the east and setting westward.

Egyptians pioneered the use of sun’s shadow through what is known as

“Sundial”. They used sticks known as “gnomon” positioned upright on a center
platform. People calculated the time based on the length of the shadow of the sun
from the projection of the gnomon. Their sundial takes a t-shaped form with crossbar
and a vertical stick. As the sun rises, the stick is maneuvered to face east and then as
the day progresses the stick is faced on the west. It’s a tedious process which entails
a lot of diligence and commitment. Greeks on the other hand, had their own version
of the sundial known as the “pelekinon” different from that of the Egyptians. In their
pelikinon, the gnomon or the vertical stick was placed in a horizontal manner.
Researchers said the pelikinon as a sundial was built with utmost accuracy to tell
and predict time in a year’s span given that they are well-versed with geometry. This
inventions later on gave inspiration to other races to build their own interpretation
of sundials. Babylonians built their own obelisks as a bigger sundial to calculate
even the shortest and longest length of day. Rome had their counterpart sundial
which is a portable one. China during the Zhou dynasty had their first sundial
versions known as the “rigou”. And as the saying goes, the rest is history.
 The conventions of building sundials does not settle with just casting the
shadow of the sun per se, but it has its own complexities. Earth being tilted on its
axis, sundials will be inconsistent that if the ancient people did not consider the
changes , accuracy will then suffer. Varied sundials comes with different positioning
to follow. Vertical sundials which are common during such time have vertical base
plates aligning its gnomon with the Earth’s axis. Horizontal sundials however have
baseplates kept horizontally. Because people utilizes natures wonders they are in fact
adapting to its natural routines as well.

We may seem to forget that before these technology eased some of our
routines such as telling and calculating the time, ancient people exerted so much
effort so we may come this far in our modern times. Time indeed runs so fast which
challenges our perspectives and orientation of how to adapt to nature’s challenges
set before us. Each ticking clock in our respective watches diligently provides us a
glimpse of the past before we forget it.