Sundial

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Discovered in the Theatre of Dionysos, Athens, sundials were ingenious instruments for measuring time during daylight hours. Their concave surfaces, shaped like a cone, were divided by 11 carefully engraved lines into 12 sections that matched the hours of the day from sunrise to sunset. A horizontal line at the bottom of each dial marked the summer solstice, while the line halfway up indicated the equinoxes and the top held a metal rod-pointer that cast the sun's shadow on the dial. As the position of the sun changed, so did the shadow, accurately indicating the hour of the day.