Discovering a sundial over 3,000 years old

A carved stone found in the Bronze Age tomb in Ukraine dating back more than 3,000 years, is considered one of the oldest sundial to date.

Archaeologists identify the sundial of Srubna or Srubnaya culture , known for its wooden frame tombs on the steppe between the Ural mountains and the Dneiper river.

The stone carvings indicate that this is a sundial used by Srubnayan from the Bronze Age.(Photo: Vodolazhskaya)

In 2011, a group of archaeologists led by Yurii Polidovich from the Donetsk museum excavated a burial mound from the Bronze Age dating back to the 12th or 13th century BC. Inside the mound, they spotted a carved plate marked by lines and circles on both sides.

In February 2013, the collected images were sent to Larisa Vodolazhskaya at the Archaeoastronomical research center, Russia.'After receiving the photos, one of the hypotheses makes me associate it with a sundial,' said LiveScience Vodolazhskaya.

To demonstrate, Vodolazhskaya calculated its sun and shadow angles to confirm that the carvings on the stone plate were used to mark the exact time. The circular depressions are placed in an ellipse used to symbolize the hour, the remaining trenches on the stone plate marking the vertical position are the place where the shadow meter of the sundial mark is marked.