Ancient Time Telling Devices

Ancient Time Telling Devices

Open Ended

What do you know about how ancient civilizations kept track of time?

Sundials

●One of the earliest time telling devices

●From the Egyptian
society

●Dating back to around 1500 BCE

●Egyptians had an
advanced understanding
of geometry and
astronomy

One of the earliest Egyptian sundials ever found.

​One of the earliest Egyptian sundials ever found

Open Ended

What are some problems that might arise if you were trying to tell time with a sundial?

Water Clocks
●Earliest known water clock
found in Egypt, Greece and
China

●An ancient Greek engineer
improved the design so much
that they were the most accurate clock for over 2,000 years

●Measured time by a controlled flow of water through a hole from one container to another

●Particularly helpful for telling
time at night

Merkhet

●Earliest known use in
Ancient Egypt

●Helped people tell time
at night by tracking the
alignment of certain
stars

●Simple device that had a bar with a plumb line
attached to a handle

●It tracked 10 hours of the
night

Open Ended

What skills would you need in order to be able to tell time with a Merkhet?

Candle Clocks
●Unknown where they
were first used.

●Earliest mention comes
from a Chinese poem in
AD 520

●Candles were made of
precise amounts of wax
that would burn away in
specific increments

●Candles were placed
inside of cases to protect the flame

●Valuable for telling time
at night

Incense Clocks
●Most likely originated in
China or India

●Also used in Japan and Korea

●Similar to candle clocks,
they use a measured
amount of incense that
measures the passing of
time by how much has
burned

●These clocks included
chimes and gongs that
would notify people of
the time

Open Ended

What are some similarities and differences between candle clocks and incense clocks?

Poll

If you could only use one of these ancient time telling devices going forward, which would you choose?

• Sundial

• Water Clock

• Merkhet

• Candle Clock

• Incense Clock