Solarium / Horologium Augusti.
at the University of Oregon, Eugene

Movie of the Winter Solstice [with thanks to Josh Rogers]

Live action on the Quad [with thanks to the UO Computing Center]

The scholarship behind the project

The fabrication of the obelisk

Greg Bolt's article in the Eugene Register-Guard

The Central Idea of the Project: While attention may understandably focus on the obelisk itself, the latter is but one half of the total project. The shadow cast by obelisk / gnomon serves also to mark time by hour, day month and season. The shadow also illustrates the rotation of the earth on its axis and suggests how the earth progresses in an elliptical orbit around the sun. This information will be recorded on the grid to the drawn on the grass during June and leading up to the summer solstice. For more information on the science and scholarship, please go to link above.

On the obelisk itself as a monument: Over the last 150 years obelisks have been used to commemorate the restauration of peace and to promote the process of reconciliation. . We mention here several examples of many:

  • The French set up an obelisk on the site of the guillotine to commemorate the return to civility following the horrors of the Reign of Terror. The square was then renamed Place de la Concorde.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_de_la_Concorde
  • The German government gave a glass obelisk to the British town of Coventry to commemorate the bombings of WW2.
  • Closer to home and of particular interest to Oregonians has been the use of the obelisk at Manzanar, California, to commemorate the injustice done to American citizens of Japanese extraction during WW2. This obelisk has particular meaning to us Oregonians at a time when we trying to extend honorary degrees to all those Japanese-American students at the University of Oregon who were 'relocated' in 1942 and could not graduate [HB2823, now signed by Governor Kulongoski].  For more on this subject and images of the obelisk at Manzanar please go to:
  • Moreover, the obelisk has been widely used as a symbol of peace and reconciliation; indeed it is one of the world's most venerated symbols and one that is truly trans-cultural.

Live Webcast
Notes from John Nicols, professor of history, nic@uoregon.edu