Friday, January 16, 2009

Waiting for the Sun

Today's featured items are three types of 16th century portable sundials, more specifically, the chalice dial, polyhedral dial, and ring dial. The first were, obviously, in the shape of chalices and could be used to tell the time of day, by rotating it until the pin matched the correct month. I seriously want one! Images can be found here:

http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=97084
and
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=81297

Polyhedral dials are essentially table-top sundials, and could be elaborately painted and decorated:
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=29766
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=22319
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=20011
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=54651
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=73212

Ring dials were really practical, the first one even had charts for telling the age of the moon, and the latitudes of different cities.
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=89914
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=84484

And finally, my personal favorite, a sundial-spoon!
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=14779

No comments:

Post a Comment