Turkey: DOĞA KOLEJİ, Istanbul

Sundial is a dial that was created by utilising the shape of the shadow on the ground according to the movement of the Sun in the sky.
In simple terms, it is possible to have an idea about the time by planting a stick on the ground and observing the shadow of it.
Although the sundial was invented by the Egyptians for the first time and developed by the Greeks; after the spread of Islam, it was developed and popularized by Muslims in order to specify the hours of Namaz correctly. In fact, there were variety of Sundials in different shapes on the walls of many mosques in Muslim world.
In Turkey, there are still Sundials on the walls of many mosques such as, Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Fatih Mosque, Topkapi Palace, Beyazid Medresa and so forth.
In the frame of “There is something new under the sun” project, we created a Sundial on the ground of Doga School’s garden. We detected the time by using the shadow of a person who stood on the determined spot. A student stood on that spot. On whichever line the sun rays drops that is drawn clocks on it, then we see the local time. The intermediary values represent the half and quarter hours.
To make the Sundial work, the Sun is the only element. It doesn’t work in a cloudy weather. That is the only disadvantage of the Sundial.

Our sundial

Sundial shows us the time according to the shadow that is formed by the incidence angle of the sun rays. For Sundial, we draw a 2 x 4 MT rectangle on the ground. This rectangle is drawn in the direction of North. By considering the South side of the rectangle as a centre, we draw straight lines in the angles of 16, 52 and 76 degree. The same lines in the same dimensions are drawn on the other half of the rectangle proportionally. These drawn lines are determined respectively starting from the West as 10, 11, 12….4 and so forth.
On whichever number, previously determined as 10, 11, 12…4, the shadow of the object falls, the time will be accepted as that number.