Hello Mashallah, Prayer times were sometimes shown on old sundials in different cultures. I think there is a link between Moslem and Christian prayer times going back to Gnostic sects in the Middle East around the third century AD. These ancient prayer times were adapted and codified by St Benedict who founded the Benedictine monastic order in the 6th century AD. Before the renaissance, mass dials or scratch dials on churches loosely indicated prayer times. There are minor residuals of the Benedictine prayer times in various forms in Christian churches but most of the time the services in Christian churches are now at convenient times, generally on Sunday.
Moslem prayer times, defined after the time of Mohammed, used the same times but later dropped the mid-morning prayer. All these times were related to the altitude of the sun. The noon and mid-afternoon times were sometimes indicated with sundials. There are many examples. I am familiar with several on mosques in Istanbul. For more details, have a look at my "Timelines" presentation. I had the opportunity to present this at the BSS meeting in Cambridge this year and at a NASS meeting in Chicago in 2005. It is available for personal or educational use on my website http://www.walkingshadow.info/Publications/Index.html as a 16 MB PowerPoint file. It is best to download it to your computer and show it as a slide show with PowerPoint or the free PowerPoint viewer. This way you see the special effects like the overlays of calculated lines on the Istanbul dials. As I found out at the BSS, the Mac PowerPoint does not "translate the meta files" properly so there are no overlays. I did not discuss the meridians in Italian cathedrals. This is another interesting topic in this general area. Enjoy. Roger Bailey www.walkingshadow.info ----- Original Message ----- From: Mashallah Ali-Ahyaie To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2007 4:04 AM Subject: Re: sundial Digest, Vol 19, Issue 6 Dear All, I read these emails with much interest. You think of the ways and means to train children to be able to safeguard the heritage of sundials, when grown-up. I think, before going through sundials, the children should learn about drawing the meridian line at the school yards, with an upright pole to note the real-noon mark, when its shadow, falls over the drawn meridian line every day. Is the real noon time also a time for praying in Christianity, Judaism, etc.? Best regards, Mashallah Ali-Ahyaie
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