posted on Feb, 5 2011 @ 08:47 AM
reply to post by davespanners
As with other sun dials around the world, the key key puzzle is how did they manage to do it with the ability to keep accurate data over huge spans
of time in generally primitive, rudimentary cultures and societies that allowed such deductions of nature's timetable? Where did that wisdom come
from, why does it seem to be a universal first step in science for a civilization when not a shred of such complex thinking existed otherwise? What
indications do we have of the basic record-keeping and math that allowed such thinking? The usual explanation is that early wise men studied the
heavens and eventually, viola!
Accuracy to the hour or even day is irrelevant with sun dials. A sun dial is more than a daytime timepiece. To call it a "sun dial" as we known
them set up in gardens, etc. is a false attribution of the structure, a shadow (pun intended) of its original intent and purpose. They are an
almanac, a nature-based computer for keeping track of and estimating about nature in its most basic form yet vital to early cultures and societies.
Primative societies had little need for precise instruments, but yet here they seem to be, scattered around the world. The only explanation is that
some higher power said, here, build this thing and it will be of great service to you. All the locals had to do was to supply the materials and the
manual labor. The education of the local leaders and shaman to using the device alone would have been a formidable task. It was a technological
advantage over nature that they never had before in a tangible form. Sun dials did not necessarily teach them how the sun and earth worked together.
No doubt, none of the languages could handle such concepts that task. That was left to them to discern las they grew in understanding. For the earl
times, sun dials served to simply show them how the light or shadow falling in a particular place among the stones was a time to start planting or
preparing for winter, etc. Nothing was required beyond that for thousands of years. Similar to our second seconds hands on a clock, that finite
features of sun dials would be relatively unimportant, but yet always inherent in the design, always there if the need arose.
All of this has been to say that the ancients, regardless of where around the world, were given a very primitive tool to met their current needs. It
has only been modern understandings of the universe that have revealed the full breadth of that hidden gift. Yet few want to ask the question of who
did this for us and seek a rational answer.