The Ancient History of Clocks

Clocks can be found almost everywhere. We noticeeffort to tell the time was to determine the position of
them at train stations, in hallways, in hospitals, in livingthe sun. He used the movement of the sun across the
rooms and in offices. Clocks are part of our everydaysky to denote what time of day it was. So he came
lives. We use them to regulate our activities in variousup with terms such as sunrise when the sun was on
ways such as when to board the bus or return homethe eastern horizon, midday when it was overhead
from work. But have you ever wondered how clocksand sunset when it was on the western horizon but all
came into existence at all?of these denotations were not accurate. For example
What we know of today as clocks has a long history.if the sun was positioned somewhere between
This time telling device is one of the most astonishingmidday and sunset, what time was it? These
inventions ever created by man because throughoutdifficulties resulted in renewed efforts to find a more
the ages he had wondered how he will know when tosuitable way to tell the time.
do what. You will appreciate this concern if you look atThe first concrete attempt at was what we would call
the origin of the word clock. The word clock comesa clock was the sundial and it was first used in 3500
from the Latin word Clocca which means a bell. A bellBC. This was a simple piece of equipment that used
tells people when to stop or start doing something. Itthe shadow of the sun to point to dials on a disk, and
announces time. So clocks were developed tothus tell the time of the day.
regulate human activities.So you see how far wall clocks have come?
We are so used to modern wall clocks that we forgetShortcomings in previous concepts led to innovations
about the early attempts of man to design a timethat led us to the accurate clocks we see today.
telling device. It is widely accepted that man's first