Sundial of the month December

Large horizontal sundial

Capelle aan de IJssel

This is the last page in the 10-year series ‘Sundial of the month’.
Starting 2013, there is a new section: ‘Page of the month’.

We presented the above ‘Sun-pointer’ in ‘Sundial of the month’ March 2012.
Near a school in the immediate vicinity, a large horizontal node sundial was realized.
The photo shows its index, a yellow sphere on a vertical pole, in the background.

On March 22, 2012, some pictures of the horizontal sundial were taken, of which two are shown below.
In the centre is the gnomon with the yellow sphere index.
The shadow of the index falls on a pattern of hour and date lines.
These lines are not divided or marked.

There are six date lines. While not wrong, it is an uncommon choice.
A zodiac calendar would use seven lines, a civil calendar twelve.

It seems likely, given the material used, that there was too little space for two separate date lines near the gnomon, and that they were therefore merged.