Ukrainian Bronze Age stone revealed to be oldest sundial ever found

A carved slab discovered in the Ukraine is thought to be the earliest example of a stone sundial ever found. 

Thought to date back to 13th Century BC when the Late Bronze Age Srubna culture would have inhabited the area, the sundial may even have been a maker for a sacrificial grave, or used as a message to the gods. 

Larisa Vodolazhskaya from the Russian Archaeoastronomical Research Centre proved it was a sundial after studying the the size and geometry of the stone and the position of its carvings.

The slab was first found in 2011 by a team of archaeologists from the Donetsk Museum of Regional Studies. 

Yurii Polidovich and his team were excavating a Bronze Age burial mound between the Ural Mountains and Ukraine's Dneiper River.

Photos of the plate were sent to Vodolazhskaya from the Southern Federal University who confirmed what it was, and what it may have been used for.  

She concluded it was a sundial after studying the the size and geometry of the stone and the position of its carvings.

The parallel lines and an 'elliptical pattern of circular depressions' proved it was what's called an analemmatic sundial. 

This was proved by calculating the angles that would have been caused by the sun and shadows. 

Modern-day sundials have a fixed vertical post, called a gnomon, that casts a shadow from the sun onto a dial. 

On analemmatic sundials, this post, or posts, have to be moved each day depending on the location of the sun. 

On one side of the slab are circular markings, placed in an elliptical pattern, and the hours are marked around the edge.

A large depression shows where the gnomons would have been placed during the winter solstice. 

One post was used to show the time in the morning and early afternoon, while the other showed the time in the late morning to evening. Each line measures half an hour in time. 

Vodolazhskaya was able to determine this by calculating that the first gnomon covered a time range of between 7.30am to 14.30pm, while the second gnomon covered a range of 10.30am to 16.30 pm.

On the other side of the stone is a smaller horizontal sundial, but Vodolazhskaya isn't sure why this carving would have been made.

According to researchers, the sundial would have belonged to the Late Bronze Age Srubna culture.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2454533/Ukrainian-Bronze-Age-stone-revealed-oldest-sundial--mark-location-sacrificial-grave.html