"The history of measuring time and the history of timepieces reflect a culture's evolution."

Bruno H. Bürgel (1875-1948),
German astronomer and author

A timeless timepiece

The discovery of the sundial marked the beginning of time measurement. Sundials date back four millennia to the Babylonian empire, which was apparently the first civilization that felt it necessary to carve up individual days into discrete units. Prior to this, time had been measured in years, months, weeks and days – but not in hours and minutes. The division of time based on the number six – still in use today – harks back to the Babylonians and the Sumerians. During the French Revolution several millennia later, the decimal system became the standard unit of measurement in virtually every domain except time. Unlike mechanical timepieces, sundials are generally devoid of moving parts; they are placed directly on the ground, and thus are part of the cosmic timepiece. All sundials are synchronized with the earth's path around the sun and thus cannot run fast or slow.

Nevertheless, sundials are often ridiculed for their inaccuracy. But such ridicule fails to reckon with the fact that until the twentieth century, sundials were an essential tool for synchronizing mechanical clocks, owing to the fact that prior to the advent of the telegraph (and later the radio), there was no other way to synchronize time in a country's capital with all other locations within its borders.