Most people think of sundials as being quite mysterious instruments on which only insiders can read the time – and then only when the sun shines.
Sundials, therefore, are mostly considered to be witnesses of a distant past, which barely fit in our century of atomic clocks or radio-controlled watches in which every split second is important.
For this reason, sundials are often only seen as curiosities or as ornamental objects. This explains why we sometimes see sundials which are not really worth their name.
Over the last few years, however, a growing interest for these remarkable instruments can be perceived: scientists, architects, teachers and other people with an interest in them, look for specific and preferably exact information about sundials and related historical devices for measuring time – just in order to know how they work or in order to make one themselves.
In our country, they can obtain information through the Sundial Society of Flanders, "Zonnewijzerkring Vlaanderen" in Dutch.
