Sundials: How to Make a Sundial, How they Work and Some Sundial History
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Sundials aren't history
Many people think of sundials as nothing more than historical curiosities. How wrong can you be? Sundials are fantastic things to have in your garden, incredibly beautiful focal points just like any urn or garden sculpture.
But sundials are so much more too:
- Fascinating scientific instruments
- A link with history
- A surprisingly intimate way to personalize
- A connection to the universe
- A means to live life slower (and don't we all need that?)
Sounds over the top? Read on and find out just how interesting sundial are.
Contents
Famous sundials
Just to whet your appetite
There are loads of amazing sundials in the world. This is just a taster, with pictures of some of the most famous sundials, contemporary and from history, showing something of the huge diversity. Click on the sundials to see a larger photo on Flickr.
The Sundial Bridge
The beautiful Sundial Bridge spans the Sacramento River at Redding, California. The bridge is a working sundial: a 217 foot high fin casts a shadow on a huge garden-lined dial plate at the north end. For engineering reasons, it is not completely accurate. Find out more about the Sundial Bridge at the Solstice at the Sundial website. Or do a Flickr search - there are many fantastic photos of the Sundial Bridge.
Bewcastle Cross sundial
This is the oldest existing sundial in the UK. A vertical sundial is carved into a richly decorated Anglo-Saxon cross at Bewcastle in Cumbria, probably in the late seventh century. The sundial is the fan-shaped carving about half way up the column.
The Tower of the Winds
Built in the marketplace at Athens in around 50BC, the octagonal tower bears a relief sculpture of a wind god on each face. Underneath each sculpture is a sundial, each engraved differently for the direction.
Samrat Yantra
Huge equatorial sundial in Jaipur, India, built in the eighteenth century. The time is told from the shadow of a fifty-step staircase. Not particularily accurate.
Queens' College sundial
Elaborate early eighteenth century sundial at a Cambridge University college. As well as the time, this sundial shows the signs of the zodiac, the sun's altitude and direction, the time of sunrise and the length of the day. It also enables timetelling by moonlight. Read more about the Queens' college sundial.
General sundials links
- The North American Sundial Society
- Sundials in the US, FAQs, forum, links.
- The British Sundial Society
- Dials in the UK, glossary, links.
- Sundials pages from the National Maritime Museum, London
- History and theory. Good readable summary.
- Wikipedia on sundials
- Got to include them, right? You know the format. Solid technical information, bit indigestible.
How sundials work
The basic idea is simple. A sundial has a pointer - called a gnomon - and the shadow cast by the gnomon when the sun shines follows a predictable path through the day. The path can be marked with hours to tell the time.Sounds too simple? Well, it is a little bit more complicated than that.
The trouble is that the predictable shadow path changes through the year. There are two reasons for this:
- The earth follows an elliptical orbit around the sun
- The earth's tilted axis
As a result, the shadow cast by the gnomon moves at different speeds and to slightly different places at different times of the year. Dialists - sundial makers - call this "solar time".
Luckily, the difference between solar time and clock time can be corrected with maths. Dialists use angled gnomons and the "equation of time" to correct their sundials. See below for links to explanations of this.
There is a further correction that needs to be made if a sundial is to match clock time.
Modern time zones (for example the Greenwich Mean Time zone) tell the time for large areas. The shadow cast by the gnomon of a sundial tells the time for the exact position of the sundial.
So the hour lines on a sundial need to be adjusted so the shadow tells the time for its time zone instead of its exact position. Unless, of course, a sundial is set exactly on the Meridian.
That's the basics. But there is a lot more mathematical matter behind sundials. If you want to find out more, use the links below.
Find out more about how sundials work
Websites
- How sundials work
- Very simple explanation, with pictures from the National Museums Liverpool, UK
- The Suntracker
- Simple program which shows how the path of the sun changes at different times of the year and at different latitudes. Also from the National Museums Liverpool
- The Sundial Primer
- Lots of information about how sundials work, different types of sundials and how to make them. Very mathematical.
- Timescales
- Chronology of how time has been measured, including explanations of solar time.
- Analemma
- Good explanations and animations of the earth's tilted axis and elliptical orbit.
Do you own a sundial?
Different types of sundials
Horizontal sundials: This is what most people think of as a sundial: a horizontal dial face with an angled gnomon, set in a pretty English garden.They are pretty, but they are far from the end of the story.
Vertical sundials: Often attached to the side of a building, vertical sundials are, well, vertical. Historically, many were placed on churches.In the middle ages in Britain, sundials were literally scratched onto the walls of churches, probably to show the hours of church services. These scratch sundials are a type of vertical sundial.
Equatorial sundials: These sundials have a dial plate that is tilted at an angle parallel to the equator. The gnomon is then set at right angles to the dial plate, parallel to the earth's axis. This is another way to solve some of the timetelling peculiarities caused by the tilt in the earth's axis.
Armillary sundials: A type of equatorial dial. In ancient times, armillary spheres were used to demonstrate the working of the solar system.Modern versions are sundials, casting a timetelling shadow from a rod running through the centre of the sphere onto an encircling band.
Portable sundials: Mainly historical. The sundial equivalent of a watch.
Analemma: This unusual type of sundial does not tell the time, just the date. It works from the fact that if you marked the position of the sun in the sky every day for a year at, say, noon, you would trace out a figure of eight. The analemma shows this figure of eight, with markings for dates.
Sundials videos on YouTube
Sundials in the garden
In the garden, sundials are remarkably versatile and beautiful focal points.
Armillary spheres, for example, are elegant and refined statuary when made of bronze; made of stainless steel, they are glittering contemporary sculptures.Armillary spheres also have the advantage of not hiding the vista beyond, so they can work well in smaller gardens.
A vertical sundial above the entrance to your home - perhaps with the house name engraved - gives visitors a memorable welcome. Vertical sundials can also cover up flaws in the wall behind.
Then there's garden obelisks - stunning dramatic features in any garden.Though they cannot accurately tell the time (they have no gnomon), the shadow cast by an obelisk can mark dates. Ground markers can be inserted around an obelisk to indicate family birthdays, for example.
Which brings me to personalization, something sundials are particularily suited to. Mottoes are traditional on sundials. If you pick an appropriate one and combine it with significant date markers on the sundial's timetelling face, you have the most perfect and intimate wedding/anniversary/birthday gift imaginable.
"The only possibility in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity in freedom in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass but patterns in the same pattern"
This touching quotation comes from a personalized sundial, an anniversary gift made by the celebrated dialist David Harber for his wife. Very romantic.
Harber is a terrific current practitioner of sundials as garden art (or see his sundials website for the US). His creations are accurate sundials. They are also stunning garden art, often very contemporary, that puts paid to the notion that sundials are nothing but historical curiosities.
View some examples of David Harber's sundials below. You can also see his work on Flickr here.
Sundial artist: David Harber
Below is a Chalice, a sundial and water feature, which is both very contemporary garden art, and modelled on an hemicyclium, an ancient Greek sundial type first seen in around 350BC.
More David Harber sundials (click the photos to see them larger on Flickr):
Contemporary
sundial
At the famous
RHS Chelsea
Flower Show
Armillary
sphere
Sculptural
sundial
Nearly twelve
o'clock on a
sundial
Sundial project: make a sundial with your kids
Sundials for kids
Making a sundial is surprisingly easy and will teach your children a lot about how the solar system works. And creating a real working sundial is very satisfying for kids.
To make an horizontal sundial, all you will need are scissors, tape, heavy card and a compass. Oh and the sun of course!
There are loads of instructions on how to build a sundial on the web. Most of them have print-outs with the hour lines ready drawn to make things easy. There are also a few books suitable for kids. I have listed some of the best of both here.
How to make a sundial - websites:
- BBC make a sundial
Make a horizontal sundial: easy, aimed at kids, with photo instructions - Make your own sundial from the National Maritime Museum, London
Another horizontal sundial to build, with print out instructions and template for the sundial base and gnomon. Nicely designed. - Make a sundial necklace/keychain
The website isn't so pretty but the end result is good. Has three levels of difficulty so older kids can make a sundial base themselves with a protractor. - How to make a sundial for your ceiling
A really fun idea - a long term project to turn the ceiling into a sundial by marking the position of the sun's reflection from a mirror. If you are artistic, the markings could then be painted for a really unusual and interesting room decoration. Spot dials like this are not uncommon in history, though typically they marked noon on the floor of churches. - Sundial fryer
Another major build a sundial project: PDF instructions to make a sundial out of a frying pan! Not for the fainthearted, requires metalworking experience. - Make your own vertical sundial
Also tricky: to make a vertical sundial - aka wall sundial - requires more maths than horizontal or equatorial dials. You need to know exactly where the dial is facing. The instructions are straightforward.
How to make a sundial - books:
Sunclocks: Paper Sundials to Make and Use
For kids, this book is one of the best options. It is nice and simple, and does a lot of the work for you, with sundial templates on heavy card ready to cut out. Has templates for horizontal, vertical and equatorial sundials.
Avg. Customer Rating: 
Amazon Price: (as of 01/04/2010) 
List Price: $12.95
Easy-to-Make Wooden Sundials
For a bigger project, how about a simple wooden sundial? Instructions for making several different types of sundials. Requires basic woodworking.
Avg. Customer Rating: 
Amazon Price: $6.95 (as of 01/04/2010)
List Price: $6.95
Make Your Own Working Paper Clock
Just in case you fancy making a clock instead. Quite complicated and fiddly so for older kids only, unless you are prepared to do most of the cutting and sticking.
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Amazon Price: $11.55 (as of 01/04/2010)
List Price: $16.99
A more serious child's guide to sundials
History of sundials: ancient sundials
Nobody knows who invented the sundial. The earliest existing sundial is Egyptian, from around 1500BC. The Greeks built on the primitive Egyptian ideas and developed accurate sundials, many in prominent places in the Greek Empire.The Romans too built accurate sundials to tell the time. Shepherds carried small portable ones. An interesting practice, symbolic of Roman power, was transporting old Egyptian obelisks to Rome and setting them up as sundials in public places.
Much of this sundial expertise disappeared in the dark ages. When sundials reappeared, they were less sophisticated, with incorrectly angled gnomons and often marking the times of church services instead of what we think of as real time.
The Arabs rediscovered how to make accurate sundials in the late middle ages and this knowledge somehow made its way back to the West.
See below for what happened next.
Buy a Sundial Book at Amazon
Sundials: Their Theory and Construction
Standard text on sundials.
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Amazon Price: $9.95 (as of 01/04/2010)
List Price: $9.95
Sundials: Their Construction and Use
Approachable advice on how to make sundials.
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Amazon Price: $10.10 (as of 01/04/2010)
List Price: $12.95
Sunclocks: Paper Sundials to Make and Use
Sundials to cut out and assemble printed on heavy stock paper. Aimed at 10-14 year olds, this book introduces sundials and has instructions for setting up. Great learning resource.
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Amazon Price: (as of 01/04/2010)
List Price: $12.95
Sundials: History, Art, People, Science
Beautiful coffee table book, but full of well researched information. A bit eclectic and impresionistic.
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Amazon Price: $35.37 (as of 01/04/2010)
List Price: $50.00
Sundials (Shire Albums)
Guide to sundials in Britain. Fascinating historical information and photos. One too many pictures of the author's own sundials.
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Amazon Price: (as of 01/04/2010)
List Price: $7.25
Fun for kids: human sundials
Making a human sundial is another major sundial project, but it does have lasting educational and play value.The basic idea is that you create a sundial face on a large flat sunny area by painting or fixing time markers on the ground.
The gnomon is a person, standing in the center of the face, casting the shadow that tells the time. The photo illustrates the concept. Like all other sundials, each human sundial must be tailor-made to its own latitude and longitude.
Creating a human sundial can be as simple or as complicated as you choose. Crayola provides some easy instructions for a rough and ready human sundial suitable for quite young kids using trial and error and chalk.
By contrast, the human sundial in the photo (it's in New Mexico) is properly calibrated and is made with engraved stones set into the grass.
You can buy inexpensive kits that provide instructions for setting up a human sundial for your latitude and longitude.
The kits are popular with schools - this project requires a lot of work and spans a number of academic disciplines. But for parents more dedicated that I could ever be, this is an opportunity to create something beautiful and fascinating with your children.
If you are interested, Sunclocks in the UK is the major supplier for the Northern hemisphere - owner Douglas Hunt pioneered the idea. For the southern hemisphere, see human sundials in Australia.
A clever idea - indoor sundials
Sundials need the sun so they have to be placed outdoors, right?Nope, not with the Spectra sundial, a modern sundial that follows in the tradition of ingenious sundial making.
The dial is designed to sit on a windowsill or other sunny spot indoors and tell the time as it beams vibrant color into the room. All that is necessary is that it is rotated to face the proper direction and that it is placed in the sun.
So this sundial does still need the sun. But it does mean you and your children can enjoy the fascination of a sundial from inside the house.
History of sundials: modern times
Amongst the sundials made during these centuries were:
Polyhedral dials: sundials built on mathematical solids, often beautiful and richly engravedPocket sundials: the boy's toys of yesteryear, showing readings not just of time but also date, compass direction, astrological information and more. Often exquisitely engraved ivory or brass with a flip top.
Scottish multiple dials: Unique to Scotland. Obelisk shaped structures smothered with sundials - 20, 30 and even 40 are not uncommon. Sundials were remarkably popular in Scotland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. (See Scottish sundials)
Gradually, as clocks became more accurate, sundials fell out of favour, although French railwaymen were reputedly still using them as late as 1900 to regulate the times of trains.
Recently, sundials have been undergoing another renaissance as decorative ornaments.
Find out more about the history of sundials
- Development of Sundials in Ancient Civilizations
- Has pages on sundials in ancient Greece, Rome and China.
- Summary of sundial history
- Good brief summary.
- Historical overview
- Discusses the development of sundials from a practical perspective. Interesting examples.
Buy a Sundial on eBay
Please be mindful of the buying tips below before you buy a sundial.
Fetching new data from eBay now... please stand by
What to watch out for when you buy a sundial
If you are buying from a well-known sundial maker, there shouldn't be a problem anyway. But if you are buying a cheap horizontal dial, you need to be more careful.
Many cheap sundials are technically excellent. Others are not. You need to check:
- That the gnomon points to 12.00, or 1.00 if your sundial is set for summer time.
- That the gnomon is straight and simple. You can't read the time off a curvy shadow.
- That the gnomon has been set at an angle equal to your latitude if the dial is flat; or that the dial plate is set at an angle equal to your latitude with the gnomon set at a right angle to the dial plate.Sounds a bit complicated I know, but if the gnomon is set wrong, there is no way a simple sundial can tell the right time.
This page has links to help find your latitude. Or you can look it up on a map.
Slow down. Stop thinking about yourself
Put a sundial in your garden and you will find yourself drawn to watch it. Slowly. Because sundials don't move fast. Watch the timetelling shadow crawl across the dial face and feel the years slip away as you connect with an older, slower way of life.
You will also find yourself drawn to think about the heavens. How can you fail to once you understand that it is the earth's orbit around the sun that is telling the time? And seeing the earth as but a small part of our solar system is a salutary change of perspective from the customary "me me me" thinking of modern life.
I'm not saying a sundial will change your life. But a break from today's hectic pace of living has got to be a good thing.
Buy sundial related designs from Cafepress
Carpe Diem Large Mug
Price: 14.99
Black & White Sun Dial Mousepad | Mouse Pad
Price: 12.99
Front Garden Tote Bag
Price: 16.99
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Part time author, full time mother and sundials fanatic when I get the time - which is not often.
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