So, take a stroll through the beautiful villages and look up…

Go and explore the Sundials of the Hautes-Alpes!

High mountains They have the largest number of sundials in France. Why?

In this sunny department (300 days of sunshine per year), several sundials can be seen in each town. 1570 sundials have been recorded for the 129 towns.

What are the components of a sundial?

No movement. No complicated mechanism. A simple flat surface, the dial and an object, the gnomon (indicator in Ancient Greek) or style The shadow cast by these signs, following the sun's path, indicates the passage of time, hour after hour. The style can be parallel to the Earth's axis, pointing towards the North Star, or inclined according to the latitude of the location. They were first found on the facades of churches (for service times), public monuments, and bourgeois houses. Now, their installation has become commonplace, reflecting the desires of residents to beautify their homes.

Since the dawn of humanity, celestial bodies have fascinated humankind. The cycles of the sun and moon have shaped their agricultural and social lives, and the sun served as their first clock. But how can we grasp each stage, from sunrise to sunset, of its daily cycle, integrating it into our routines and using it as a reference point?

Since prehistoric times, early humans observed the shadow cast by a stick on the ground and the evolution of this shadow - shorter or longer - throughout the day.

All the great civilizations have been interested in it: Egyptians, Hindus, Arabs, Greeks.

In Mesopotamia, the Chaldeans, ancestors of the Babylonians, were already studying celestial movements 4000 years BC. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the gnomon had been in use for a very long time.

Herodotus, the Greek historian (468-420 BC), first mentioned the gnomon, the ancestor of the sundial, invented by the Babylonians. It consisted of a vertical gnomon whose shadow was cast onto a flat horizontal surface. The Greeks thus divided time by observing, for each day of sunlight, the direction and length of the shadow: very long at sunrise, it shortened until noon, then lengthened considerably until sunset. This is why the ancient sundial, not being a clock, lacked its precision. It indicated an unequal time that varied according to the seasons. The day was divided into 12 hours, the length of which varied from 80 minutes at the summer solstice to 40 minutes at the winter solstice, and 60 minutes at the equinoxes.

The Babylonian invention was passed on to the Egyptians, who developed the vertical sundial twenty centuries before Christ. The oldest known sundial dates back to 1450 BC.

The sundial was, as one might expect, the first object that made it possible to know the local time, that of one's village, of one's hamlet, a valuable indication for timing the activities of the inhabitants, the times of religious services, the social life of the villagers.

In the Hautes-Alpes department, the first sundials appeared as early as the end of the Middle Ages.

Of the 1000 sundials listed, which were very widespread between the beginning of the 18th century and the beginning of the 20th century, 400 of them were old and painted before 1914.

Take a stroll through our beautiful villages…

Look up... Look for the sundials! And admire their great diversity!

They are a little bit everywhere, most often on a south-facing facade, but sometimes, however, the dial is not on this facade, and you may see two dials, one to the east and the other to the west, to have the time all day long.

Yes, have fun searching for and finding the sundials…

Because these are truly original works of folk art, traditional with their rich artistic expressions, their multiple and colorful decorations using a variety of techniques: frescoes often "a fresco" (lime is mixed with natural dyes and applied fresh), sculptures, sometimes in rock, with painted decorations, naive, baroque, with ceramics, trompe l'oeil, of different styles and forms, adorned with arabesques, flowers, animals, landscapes, characters.

It is a pictorial art form in its own right.

They sometimes adorn listed historical monuments in the Louis XV, Louis XVI, Empire style, etc.

From valley to valley, the craft of sundial art often crosses borders, from one country to another, and we mention the Italian sundial artist Zarbula, master of gnomonic art who, in the 19th century, from 1833 to 1881, created in France sundials imitating Byzantine art with trompe-l'oeil, suns, moons, flowers, birds, notably the solar bird of the Alps, the eagle and also the rooster which symbolizes vigilance.

Seven of its sundials are listed as historical monuments.

And then, stroll around… linger… take the time to read their maxims, religious or secular sayings, moral and philosophical, which often speak to us of wisdom, the fleeting nature of time, and the precariousness of existence, such as:

"It's later than you think."

“Nihil sine sol” (Nothing without the sun)

"There is a time for everything."

"Carpe diem" (Seize the day)

"Enjoy your time"

All these are currencies that are perfectly suited to the precious time of vacation!

 The decline

The invention of the railway established a legal time in 1891, followed by universal time in 1911 (Greenwich meridian). These replaced the approximate local times indicated by sundials. And clocks began to appear in villages and towns.

Renewal

The creation of sundials was therefore abandoned, but in the 80s, enthusiasts set out to discover this rich heritage. Many were restored, and a new generation of sundial artists began creating new ones, striving to respect the techniques of the past.

For your greatest pleasure, curious minds and lovers of beauty and knowledge, open your eyes wide and set off to discover our history!

The exceptional sundials of the Hautes-Alpes will tell you the story.

You can find them at:

La Roche des Arnauds (notably that of the Copernic association), La Fressinouse, Montmaur, Gap, Neffes, Pelleautier, Sigoyer etc. 

Take the road Sundials…

You won't waste your time!