Oriel36:
http://www.americanantiquities.com/a...article14.html
This site give a history of the sundial. Quite informative. An interesting passage from there is:
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According to Herodotus (the Greek "Father of History"), the sundial was first created in the ancient empire of Babylonia (ca 2700 – 538 B.C.), or at the very least came to Greece from there.
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and
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The Babylonian people used 360 degrees in a circle, twelve months in a year, seven days in a week, and most importantly twenty-four hours in a day.
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Now, Oriel36, the reason that we have 360 degrees in 24 hours is because
The ancients believed that the Sun orbited the fixed, non-rotating Earth. It wasn't until after Coppernicus that scientists realized that the Earth not only orbited the sun, it rotated on its axis. By that time, the 360 degrees in 24 hours was too entreched as the time standard to be changed.
So, your hypothesis that the 24 hour day is absolute time is based upon a geocentric view of the universe. Since we know that the Earth is
not the center of the universe, your hypothesis cannot be correct.