Roman portable sundial WIP

[MDF]

Hi Guys,
I recently post a tutorial on a bronze buckle and some people have appreciated, in another post recently spoke also to seek new tutorials so I post a new work in progress of one of my latest works... I hope someone appreciates.

This is a very very special project, a portable roman sundial in bone and bronze stored in Este Museum.
It 'a fascinating and unique item, too bad that the museum does not allow you to take pictures :evil: :evil:

Here you can see an interesting article on this sundial link

This will be a fully functioning replica because the hour lines are calculated for my specific latitude!

Finding a bone suitable for this work was very complicated because some measures were needed hard to find, after some research I opted for a ostrich bone .
Now I do not find the cap bone of similar thickness so opt for a substitute ... cattle or deer horn or wood ... advice on the most appropriate material are welcome :wink:

As usual I post multiple pictures that describe the process, I hope not too many ...

[jvrjenivs]

Well, it's looking perfect, as usual. I especially liked the images of the turning part and preparations thereof. I don't have any experience with work like that, but would like to try it some day. Many thanks for sharing.

[Titus Marius Secundus]

I am lost for words, but once again you haven't failed to stun my imagination. You got that bone looking pretty damn good! And how you put those grooves in the bone too, it's amazing. I really need a lathe but, if I get one, it has to be big! About 6 ft length and a pro's look to it. Make some pretty stuff.....haha I can imagine buying a large solid piece of maple and making about 7 handle pieces at once, lol.... :grin: mas producing quality swords and other things sounds dreamy~~~
good work once again, keep the imagination spinning, and good luck!

Sam 8-)
P.S YOU GOTTA TEACH ME TO CAST :-x :roll:

[MDF]

Thanks guys,
new progress.....

[richsc]

Wow; do you have a diagram or blueprint from which you're working?

[MDF]

Hi Richard,
no blueprint, I am rebuilding this sundial basing on different data: for shape and its components I see the original and the article I've attached.
For hour lines I had the help of a very kind person who calculated for my latitude, so it really worked. These days I'm doing some testing time because everything is not clear ... yet.

One question: I saw in article that is another in bone in the Landesmuseum of Mainz ... does anyone have any news?

[Titus Marius Secundus]

Nice! I just bough a wood lathe today. It's a 33 inch by 12" diameter. Gonna have to wait till b-day to use tho :-x :-x :-x I saw a metal lathe but $500 so gonna have to find some more ways to make money first :-| DAMN IT! :evil: ]

Keep it up, we're watching!

Sam

[Caballo]

Thanks- not only great work, but I never realised these existed in roman time- many thanks!

[MDF]

Hi guys,
new progress: I have now started the last operation, tracking of the hour lines requires a bit of patience...but now the work is almost finished :wink:

[Titus Marius Secundus]

Very good, and great progress as we see it coming together, but as I don't know how it works yet, I am only looking at a foreign language. BRAVO!

Sam

[Crispvs]

Marco,

Fantastic work as always. As someone who also works bone I have to say too, that the quality of your bonework is stunning!


Sam,

In answer to your question, when the arm is extended it casts a shadow down the side of the cylinder (in daylight that is - sundials cannot be used by artificial light). How far down that shadow extends depends on the angle of the sun and therefore the time of day. This means that by rotating the cylinder until one of the lines carved into it matches the length of the shadow, you can read the time of day according to which line the shadow matches.

It is worth mentioning here that sundials are not a consistent way of calculating time as the the angle of the sun and the length of daylight hours varies according to the time of year, meaning that an hour as calculated in the winter would end up being shorter in actual chronological terms than an hour which was calculated in the summer according to a sundial.
The ancient world did have ways of measuring set amounts of time, such as water containers marked with increments which released water at a steady rate, enabling time to be measured according to the level of water in the container or by using candles of predetermined length and similarly marked with increments which burnt down at a steady rate. Thus it was possible to time something to a specific length of time such as an hour but as the well known example of the hourglass (a later invention I believe), whose action can be started at any time and bears no relationship to the actual time of day, shows, measurement of time alone does not allow one to know the hour of the day. Until the invention of mechanical clocks in the middle ages, the sundial was really the only way to do this.
This particular sundial is quite a sophisticated one, with each of the vertical lines keyed to a particular month of the year. The horizontal lines give approximate hourly divisions for the length of shadow expected for each of these months. This would be fairly good but still nowhere near as accurate as the mechanical clocks which I believe began to appear in the thirteenth century to enable monks to get up at set times of the night (when of course there is no sunlight) to pray.

Crispvs

[Sutoris]

Very nice work Marco!

[Titus Marius Secundus]

Very nice description, I enjoyed reading it, and was worth it. Thank you Crispvs :grin:

Sam

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

That is an interesting piece, and the work you have done, is again, inspiring!
A swiss watch of Roman Time pieces perhaps?

[Epictetus]

Have you ever thought of trying Vitruvius' water clock, Marco?

I'm fascinated by ancient time-keeping.