Marble sundial by Khalīl ibn Ramtāsh, Cairo, 1326 (AH 726) — view 1 of 3 — View 1 of 3 · Image: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London · original image source (opens another website in a new tab)

View 1 of 3 · Image: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London · original image source (opens another website in a new tab)

Instruments · Sun Dial

Marble sundial by Khalīl ibn Ramtāsh, Cairo, 1326 (AH 726)

DocumentedDocumented from the holding institution's catalogue record.

Maker / attribution: Khalīl ibn Ramtāsh (maker (signed in the inscription))
Date: 1326
Historical period: Medieval Period (500 – 1400)
Country of origin: Egypt
Place: Cairo
Object type: Sun Dial
Materials / technique: marble, engraving
Dimensions: Height: 44.1 cm; Width: 72.5 cm; Depth: 3.8 cm
Holding institution: Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Accession / object no.: 880-1884

Editor's note

The source title reads 'England', the country of acquisition. The Kufic inscription and the museum's description record that the dial was made in Cairo in AH 726 (1326 CE) by Khalīl, son of Ramtāsh.

View the source record ↗ (opens another website in a new tab)Suggest a correction

Record summary

Held and catalogued by Victoria and Albert Museum, London (object number 880-1884), this is a sun dial by Khalīl ibn Ramtāsh, made in Cairo, Egypt, dated 1326. The Atlas places it in the Medieval Period (500 – 1400) of its Instruments collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: marble, engraving. Recorded dimensions: Height: 44.1 cm; Width: 72.5 cm; Depth: 3.8 cm. The record is illustrated with 3 photographs.

Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.

Catalogue description

Physical description — Victoria and Albert Museum

SUN DIAL. Marble, engraved with diagrams and Arabic (Kufic) inscription, with date, “Khalíl, son of Ramtásh, wrought it in the year of the Hijreh 726.” From Cairo. Saracenic. A.D. 1326. H. 2 ft. 4 ¾ in., W. 1ft. 5 ¼ in. Bought (St. Maurice Collⁿ), 10l. Description from the 'List of Objects in the Art Division, South Kensington Museum acquired during the Year 1884'. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1885. p. 82

Brief description — Victoria and Albert Museum

Sun dial made from marble, engraved with diagrams and an Arabic (Kufic) inscription: “Khalíl, son of Ramtásh, wrought it in the year of the Hijreh 726.” Egypt. 14th Century

Provenance

Bought from the collection of Gaston de Saint-Maurice (1831-1905) in 1884. Saint-Maurice displayed his extensive art collection at the 1878 Paris exhibition, in a gallery entitled L'Egypte des Khalifes. This was part of an official sequence of displays celebrating the history of Egypt, presented by the Egyptian state at this international event. Saint-Maurice held a position at the Khedival court, and had lived in Cairo in 1868-1878. Following the exhibition, Saint-Maurice offered his collection for sale to the South Kensington Museum (today the V&A).

Historical context

Medieval Period (500 – 1400)

Su Song's astronomical tower in Song China, al-Jazari's automata, and the first European weight-driven verge clocks.

Astronomers in the Islamic world refined the astrolabe, quadrants and sundials for prayer times and astronomy; through al-Andalus these instruments reached Latin Europe, where they were taught at universities.

Read the period in the timeline More instruments from this period Earlier: Classical Antiquity

Atlas type guide

Sundials and solar time-finders

A sundial tells time from the position of a shadow cast by a gnomon or style. Because the sun's apparent motion depends on latitude, every fixed dial is laid out for a particular latitude, and portable dials either carry a latitude scale or are made for one region. Sundials show local apparent solar time, which drifts against mean (clock) time by up to about sixteen minutes over the year — the equation of time.

Portable dials were the pocket instruments of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Nuremberg and Augsburg workshops produced folding ivory diptych dials with inset compasses; English and French makers sold brass horizontal dials, ring dials and the Butterfield type; Japanese and Chinese makers had their own traditions of compass dials. After mechanical watches became reliable, dials remained in use for setting them, and nineteenth-century heliochronometers were built to correct directly for the equation of time.

What to look for

The latitude engraved on the dial plate or a latitude arc on the gnomon — it shows where the dial was meant to be used.
The type of hour lines: equal (equinoctial) hours, Italian or Babylonian hours counted from sunset or sunrise, or unequal temporal hours on early and Islamic instruments.
An inset magnetic compass and whether a magnetic-declination mark is drawn on its card — a useful dating clue because declination changes over time.
Maker's signatures and town marks: Nuremberg compass-makers (Kompassmacher) often struck a personal mark and the town's punch.
Additional scales such as lunar volvelles, wind roses, perpetual calendars or lists of cities with their latitudes.

Dating clues

Ivory diptych dials are characteristic of Nuremberg between about 1500 and 1700.
Butterfield-type dials with a bird-shaped adjustable gnomon point to Paris workshops from the late seventeenth century onward.
Equation-of-time tables engraved on the plate became common after the mid-seventeenth century, once pendulum clocks made the difference between solar and mean time obvious.

General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.

Mechanisms mentioned

No escapement or complication is named in the source record. See the encyclopedia for how such pieces work.

Record completeness

Maker or attributionRecorded
DateRecorded
Place or countryRecorded
MaterialsRecorded
DimensionsRecorded
Narrative descriptionRecorded
Inscriptions / marksNot in source
ProvenanceRecorded
Several photographsRecorded

Editorial status: Documented — facts as published by the source; not independently verified by Atlas editors.

Explore further

Sources & image rights

Record source: Victoria and Albert Museum, London (opens another website in a new tab).

Image rights: © Victoria and Albert Museum (non-commercial terms) — permission review (opens another website in a new tab).

Images are hosted by the Atlas for study and credited to their owner. Rights holders may request correction, credit changes or removal, or grant permission, via the editorial office.

Cite this record

"Marble sundial by Khalīl ibn Ramtāsh, Cairo, 1326 (AH 726)." Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 880-1884. Catalogue record in The Horology Atlas, WatchMuseum.org, https://atlas.watchmuseum.org/museum/marble-sundial-by-khalil-ibn-ramtash-cairo-1326-ah-726-cef80b.

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