Earliest Sundials

[Mike Cowham]

Dear Sundial Friends,     I would like to thank all of you who have replied to my question about the earliest equal hour sundials.  I have had several suggestions, all dated from around 1450 and later.  This roughly agrees with my own guess, although Rohr believed that these dials came to Europe from the Arabs at the end of the crusades, almost 200 years before!      It is surprising how quickly the new technology seemed to spread and was applied to portable dials, including a built-in compass, certainly by 1500.  Does anyone have any evidence of earlier portable dials with the 'new' gnomon?  I think that earlier dials were made in Nuremberg, possibly 1480, but as far as I know none seem to have survived.       A Happy 2005 to All,   Mike Cowham, Cambridge.