Mallorca, the paradise of sundials

PalmaThe beginnings of humanity were marked by the Sun. People worked 'from sunrise to sunset' to earn a living, a word that derives from the Latin adjective 'diurnus' ('daily'). As they became sedentary, various ancient cultures set out to follow the movements of the king of the stars to organize themselves better. They did this by measuring their shadows with a stick planted in the ground. In Greek, this stick would be known as a gnomon, from which comes the term 'gnomonics', the art of building sundials. Thus began the process of domesticating time. That astronomical invention would reach us with the name of clock also from another Greek word, 'horológion' ('hour indicator').

During the Sun's transit from east to west, the shadow cast by the gnomon, which in ancient Egypt could also be an obelisk, kept changing, allowing time to be divided into three parts (dawn, noon, and dusk). With the Romans, sundials became popular on the facades of buildings. In Mallorca there are about 1,300, 112 of which are located in Palma. This is according to the inventory compiled in 2006 by Miguel Ángel García Arrando, a 72-year-old retired draughtsman, a member of ARCA (Association for the Revitalization of Old Centers). "Our island – he says – is one of the regions in the world with the most sundials per square meter. This is because we are a overpopulated territory. Since the Catalan conquest in the 13th century, Mallorca was filled with constructions, both in Palma, with the noble houses, and in the countryside, with the well-known estates. The same did not happen in Menorca and Ibiza. Many of these constructions would eventually incorporate a sundial, generally oriented towards the south. However, the oldest one preserved is from the 16th century and is located in Santa Margalida. None remain from earlier periods.

The Mallorcan Babylonian hours

At least, buildings usually had two solar instruments: one on the main facade for people working outside and another in the cloister, for the residents. “There –points out the researcher– where there are more is in Palma and in the south of the island, especially in Llucmajor and Felanitx. The author of many is unknown”. Hung on the walls, sundials would change the horizontality of their beginnings for verticality. A perpendicular gnomon cast its shadow on a surface, called a quadrant, which was divided into 12 equal parts. This division, which also extended to the night, came from the duodecimal enumeration of the Sumerians, for whom the hand was the first calculator. With their thumb they counted the phalanges of the rest of the fingers of one hand. The total sum was twelve. With the five fingers of the other hand they kept count of that operation, which would lay the foundations for the sexagesimal system (5 x 12 = 60), the skeleton of the future 60 seconds and 60 minutes.

“In Mallorca –García assures– sundials had a peculiar time system, the well-known Majorcan Babylonian hours. The 24 hours of the day were not counted from one dawn to the next, as was done elsewhere, following the model of the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, nor from sunset to sunset, in the Italian manner (Italic hours). It was a mixed system. During solar hours, the Babylonian enumeration was used, and during the night, through the bell towers, the Italic one. The population never came to understand that kind of computation, which varied depending on whether it was summer or winter. This is demonstrated by the expression: ‘This is more complicated than Majorcan hours!’”

During the Middle Ages, the sundials of some convents and churches only had the hours corresponding to the times of prayer marked. These were the well-known canonical hours, which were in sync with the Benedictine rule ‘ora et labora’ (‘pray and work’). Initially, there was ‘prima’ (at dawn), ‘tertia’ (mid-morning), ‘sexta’ (at noon, which was the hottest part of the day when people took their siesta or rest) and ‘nona’ (until sunset, from which comes the expression ‘anar a fer nones’ to tell a child to go to sleep; the English term ‘afternoon’ refers to the same old time slot). At night, four more were added: ‘matines’ (around 3 a.m.), ‘laudes’ (at dawn), ‘vespres’ (at sunset), and ‘completes’ (before going to sleep). As there was no sun, these night hours were counted with other instruments such as a candle – the hour was marked by its consumption – or the clepsidra (‘water thief’ in Greek), consisting of a container of water that dripped onto another – the hour was marked when the latter was full.

‘Sic vita fugit’

In Mallorca, most sundials indicated the time with Arabic numerals, which from the 15th century onwards replaced Roman ones. There were two types: those placed above the rooftops, which were smaller, and those carved into the walls. Some of these were accompanied by Latin sayings, which mainly recalled the transience of life: ‘sic vita fugit’ (‘thus life flees’), ‘morior cum sol moritur’ (‘I die when the sun dies’), ‘ultima multis umbra’ (‘the last shadow for many’) and ‘brevis sunt dies hominis’ (‘short are the days of man’), among others. On the Peninsula, the repertoire was more classic: ‘omnes vulnerant, ultima necat’ (‘all hours wound, the last kills’), ‘mors certa, hora incerta’ (‘death certain, hour uncertain’), ‘memento mori’ (‘remember you must die’), ‘tempus fugit’ (‘time flees’), ‘carpe diem’ (‘seize the day’)... There were also some in Catalan such as ‘qui dia passa, any empeny’ (he who passes a day pushes a year) and ‘hores passen, obres resten’ (hours pass, works remain).

Sundials presented a series of problems. “Since summer is the time of most sunlight –García points out–, there were not twelve daylight hours, but fifteen. Furthermore, local time could vary a lot from one point to another depending on its location. In the case of the two extremes of Mallorca, Artà and Andratx, the difference was very noticeable.” Located in the southwest, Andratx has a sun on its coat of arms to indicate precisely that it is the last village on the island to see the Sun before it sets. Sóller also has one, although its presence is related to a popular etymology of the toponym.

In the countryside, the laborers who worked far from the estates could not see the sundials or hear the bell tolls. They calculated, however, the time by the different positions of the king star with respect to rocks, cliffs, caves, or vegetation. The main natural time reference was noon. This is reflected in the toponymy in names such as puig del Migdia (Andratx, Calvià); penyal del Migdia (Fornalutx, Valldemossa, Banyalbufar, Andratx, Calvià); penya del Migdia (Puigpunyent, Pollença, Alcúdia, Bunyola, Selva, Escorca); roca del Migdia (Estellencs); cova del Migdia (Algaida) and comellar del Migdia (Esporles).

Broken life rhythms

In the 18th century, during the Age of Enlightenment, sundials were a symbol of knowledge and progress. Soon, however, they were replaced by mechanical clocks. It was the triumph of the known mean solar time (artificial) over true solar time – which corresponded to the Earth's transition around the Sun and the inclination of the axis of rotation with respect to the plane of the ecliptic. During the Industrial Revolution, mechanical clocks would adorn the walls of many factories. The proletariat, who worked in shifts – day and night – never lost sight of it. From a capitalist perspective, hours were a source of profit. Therefore, there was no time to lose. This is how the maxim ‘time is gold’ was born.

In the 19th century, the arrival of the train in Mallorca also imposed mechanical clocks on the facades of many stations – by then, Europe had already adopted a common, synchronized time system. Travelers had to pay close attention to them. 'The train waits for no one,' said a popular expression. At the beginning of the 20th century, the advent of electricity would forever break the vital rhythms of people, who previously, when guided by solar time, did not sleep in one go, but in two phases, in what is known as biphasic sleep. After a long workday, they went to bed shortly after sunset and woke up naturally at midnight, a moment they used to pray, converse, or do small household chores. Two hours later, they would go back to sleep until dawn, with the crowing of the rooster.

In the 1980s, some areas of Palma, such as Portitxol and the Maritime Promenade, were decorated with monumental sundials, while the old ones fell into oblivion. Today, their architectural protection is a priority for ARCA. 'More than half – concludes García – are in very poor condition. When a facade has been renovated, they have been hidden or rebuilt in any way. Now, after 30 years of work, our goal is to also inventory the sundials of Menorca and the Pitiuses. We have an impressive gnomonic heritage that we must claim.”