Josh Clark

Still got to be exact, you know?

Right, right.

Okay, so you got the sundial and everybody was like, well, we move around a lot and not every place has a sundial, but I always want to know what time it is.

And what humans do is take a technology and figure out how to shrink it down into a portable size.

And they did that with sundials too, usually made of bronze.

And because they were mobile, they would also have settings and often instructions on how to adjust it depending on where you were in the world.

Like some of the ancient ones that have been found have like just put it to this setting if you're in Constantinople or put it in this setting if you're in Luxor.

Right.

And then other ones, you kind of have to figure it out a little more based on latitude.

Right.

But they were portable and essentially they were like pocket watches, but amazing bronze spheres sometimes.

Yeah.

So like once they could do that, they would hang it facing the sun so that that little pointers, I guess it was still called a gnomon at this point.

I would think so.

I think some people still call them gnomons when they're referring to sundials.

Yeah, I think you're right.

But they would face the sun so that that pointer's shadow would hit the correct hour.

Later on, they had different types that had like a pinhole that let the beam of sunlight come through and actually shine a mark on the hour, which was like super advanced at the time.

Yeah, it was like the Staff of Ra model.

Oh, yeah.