Dear Mike et.al.,
Well I don't believe it. The images are pretty awful, but the one on the right is clearly of two pieces which were not found together. Assuming that early man even wanted to mark the passage of time in this way, (why, was he waiting for the shops to open?), why would he have chosen to look around for a suitable large flint, with a suitable hole to take his gnomon, and a suitable bowl shaped depression (which probably makes it lot more difficult to interpret) for the shadow, when he could simply have put the cylindrical flint upright in the ground and got the same result? Or simpler still use a stick! This interpretation appears to be done through the eyes of someone looking backwards, who already knows about scaphe dials. Peter Tandy ________________________________ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Cowham Sent: 14 April 2011 08:50 To: [email protected] Subject: Two Prehistoric Portable Sundials? Dear Sundial Friends, I have just seen the pictures by the BBC of two 'Portable Sundials' from their 'History of the World' series. I think that these are just two oddly shaped flints; not sundials. What do you think? Happy dialling, Mike Cowham www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/DmrAs4M1SyWi4ET4e1-Zcw
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