The scaphe is a bowl sundial, designed with a hole to let through a ray of sunlight. The inside is engraved with line and Greek inscriptions. The spot lit by the sunbeam would mark the month, day, and hour. This sundial is created in the shape of a skyphos, or drinking vessel, which is fashionable during the time.
The scaphe was supposed to be positioned vertically with the hole uppermost and the concave bowl facing the observer. The broadest division corresponds to the summer solstice, 24 June, and the narrowest the winter solstice, 25 December.The fan of eleven lines dividing the curving sections marks the length of the twelve daytime hours of the Roman day, which were longer in summer and shorter in winter. The hole in the vessel let through a ray of sunlight that marked the month, day, and hour, moving round the bowl as the position of the sun changed. The opening would originally have been partly closed off with a bronze plaque, restricting the opening and thus focusing the beam more precisely, but this has been lost. The sundial was made for use at a latitude of 41.
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