The oldest solar quadrant was found in Egypt; it "came" from the XIIIth century B.C. The engineer Nicolae Constantinescu says that beginning with the Vth - IVth century BC two devices were known and used; they functioning was based on the movements made by the sun's shadow earth. The first device was made during the time of the Greek poet Aristofan (446 - 385 B.C.), the second during the time of Pericles (490 - 429 B.C.).

If we speak about the first Romanian "clocks", we must go back in the IVth century B.C. This ancient device was discovered on a marble block placed on one of Histria Citadel's walls, in its sacred area.

The conclusions about it were that the solar quadrant was manufactured on that wall, it showed the hours, the months and the beginning of the seasons; the linear marks were showing the growth of the day's length beginning with the winter solstice, and its decreasing starting with the summer solstice.

In Brasov, at the intersection of the road that links Brasov and Bran with "The Long Street" (Strada Lungă") was built, at the beginning of the XIIIth century the Bartholomew Church, the oldest building in town. The members of the manufacturing leagues placed on one of its walls a painted hemisphere on which we can see numbers from 1 to 12 and a stalk. It was a solar clock, and on it one can see the inscription 1657. Back to some other memories...

During a visit to Oradea, while crossing the bridge over Crisul Repede I saw another interesting thing. On the town's tower, under the horologe there was a sphere, half golden - half black. I entered the place because I wanted to see how it worked. When I reached the bell's room I could see a big mechanical device: it had 2 m height and it was 2 m large. Embedded in the wall, half inside half outside, there was the "Moon". The diameter of the sphere was 1 m. It was made in 1793 by George Rueppe. The clock was directly connected with the sphere by a metal stalk; this way the moments of the "Moon" were controlled by the clock, in a way in which the golden part of the "Moon" decreased directly proportional with the sphere's rotation . When there was a "full Moon", from the street one could only the golden part of the sphere.

English version by Nora Parvu.