page_title: History of sundials
hierarchical_section_title: History of sundials
caption_attribution_description: English: World's oldest Sundial, from Egypt's Valley of the Kings (c. 1500 BC)&#160;; is it a sundial&#160;???
context_page_description: A sundial is a device that indicates time by using a light spot or shadow cast by the position of the Sun on a reference scale. As the Earth turns on its polar axis, the sun appears to cross the sky from east to west, rising at sun-rise from beneath the horizon to a zenith at mid-day and falling again behind the horizon at sunset. Both the azimuth and the altitude can be used to create time measuring devices. Sundials have been invented independently in every major culture and became more accurate and sophisticated as the culture developed.
context_section_description: A sundial is a device that indicates time by using a light spot or shadow cast by the position of the Sun on a reference scale. As the Earth turns on its polar axis, the sun appears to cross the sky from east to west, rising at sun-rise from beneath the horizon to a zenith at mid-day and falling again behind the horizon at sunset. Both the azimuth (direction) and the altitude (height) can be used to create time measuring devices. Sundials have been invented independently in every major culture and became more accurate and sophisticated as the culture developed.
caption: World's oldest known sundial, from Egypt's Valley of the Kings (c. 1500 BC), used to measure work hours.[1][2][3]
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