At my first fulltime job at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, I got to polish gold and silver antique astrolabes, as well as inventory the earliest astronomy books. The collection included what might have been the first alarm clock - made up of a sundial, magnifying glass, and a small cannon.
TEMPVS FVGIT
Cool! I worked on the collections database that was used to track the collection there. This was back in the 90s.
They didn’t know ALL CAPS are shouting?
Fascinating to think of the level of intelligence of so many in Ancient Rome and before. I got in a discussion with this guy in Los Altos Ca a few years ago. He is an avowed atheist and has great disdain for Christians. Anyway, I stated that people living 2000 years ago were just as intelligent as those today. He scoffed at the notion. They actually were just as intelligent but lacked printing presses necessary to make education universal or to pass on accumulated knowledge.
I want a sundial like that. 8>)
Jimmy Sherman could fix it. Over on 85th and Columbus.
I thought Fred Flintstone had the first alarm clock.
Nonsense.
University of Cambridge researchers report
Nonsense.
after finding it intact two millennia later
Nonsense.
during excavation
Nonsense.
in the Roman town of Interamna Lirenas, near Monte Cassino, in Italy.
Nonsense.
Carved in limestone and 54 centimeters in width
Nonsense.
, the sundial's concave face was engraved with 11 hour lines intersecting three day curves.
Nonsense.
Thus the device could give indicate the season: the winter solstice, equinox and summer solstice,
Nonsense.
the archaeologists say.
Nonsense.
Its gnomon (pointer) was mostly gone,
Nonsense.
but a bit of it survived under lead fixing.
Nonsense.
That's pretty cool. Won't work on a cloudy day though. :-)
“Marcus Novius Tubula”
The workers, upon completing this amazing masterpiece exclaimed “That’s like totally Tubula!”