The Lost Roman Sundial

Roman Britain was a period of nearly 400 years between AD 43 to AD 410 when large parts of Great Britain were under occupation by the Roman Empire. During this period, the Romans built roads and architectural structures that can still be seen today. These include military structures such as forts and walls (including Hadrian’s Wall), Roman baths and aqueducts.

The Romans also introduced a number system based on roman numerals. These roman numerals are still used today, for instance on most analogue clocks, even though mechanical clocks did not exist at the time. Three main types of timepieces were used in ancient Roman times: The sundial, the klepsydra, and the obelisk.

A team of archaeologists has recently discovered some old parchments that include a map of the old roman city of Bath, Somerset, UK (Aquae Sulis) covered with Roman numerals from I to L (1 to 50). They also found 12 encoded messages and a piece of a golden sundial that they believed belonged to emperor Claudius. The legend tells that the sundial was broken in 13 pieces which were spread out and buried all over the city of Bath. The archaeologists would need your help to decode these messages, which they believe will help them locate the 12 remaining pieces of the lost golden sundial!
The Lost Roman Sundial – Code Breaking ChallengeOpen in New Window