The city of Cambridge has 19 sundials. There is even a book about them, 'Cambridge Sundials' by Alexis Brookes & Margaret Stanier, and a Cambridge Sundial Trail which you can walk around. This one, which has six faces, is above the Gate of Honour at Gonville & Caius College.
The obelisks of ancient Egypt from 3500 BC onwards were the first type of sundial, and the first instruments for telling the time. The Old Testament ( Isaiah 38:8 and II Kings 20:11) also describes a sundial, the Dial of Ahaz, from around 700 BC.
Sundials often have a motto inscribed beneath them:
'Let others tell of storms and showers; I mark only the sunny hours'
'Mach' es wie die Sonnenuhr: zähl' die heitren Stunden nur!' (Do like a sundial and count only the sunny hours!)
