News

If not covered by clouds where you live, the moon is big and shinning tonight. Almost bright enough to read a sundial or are we getting a bit too excited? Some day we'll have to start selling nocturnal dials. In celebration to the big ol' hunk of cheese enjoy the French silent film, Le Voyage Dans La Lune with a new score from the band Air. 

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  Fascinating article (with extensive number of photos) on the diverse range of sundials in Israel. The traveler with an interest in historical and beautiful reproductions would be well advised to make a trip to Israel. The photo above shows a stone dial from Jaffa (photo credit Gadi Edelheit)   Link: Sundials In Israel

 Wondering what the patina of a solid brass sundial from Rome looks like after 15 years in the sun, snow & rain? This Sunrise ~ Sunset sundial was set outside in the late 1990s and the photo was taken yesterday. We love how the faux finish is naturally replaced with a verdigris patina. 

Excellent discussion on BBC 4's In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg on the history of time measurement. <<Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the measurement of time. Early civilisations used the movements of heavenly bodies to tell the time, then mechanical clocks emerged in Europe in the medieval period. For hundreds of years clocks were inaccurate but now atomic clocks are capable of keeping time to a second in 15 million years.>> stream, download or podcast In Our Time