Water Clocks: A Historical Perspective on Ancient Timekeeping Technology

In ancient times, people used a variety of methods to tell time, including sundials and water clocks. Sundials were commonly used in ancient times, but they had limitations. They only worked when there was sunlight and could not maintain continuous divisions of time. To compensate for these shortcomings, water clocks were invented. Water clocks are devices that consist of containers with lines and small drainage holes. There are two types of water clocks: outflow and inflow.

Outflow water clocks have measuring lines inside the container and work by filling the tank with water that leaks out at a steady rate. Inflow water clocks operate on the same principle but have measuring lines in a second container. These devices allowed people to keep track of time more accurately than sundials, even during periods without sunlight.

The oldest known water clock dates back to around 1417 – 1379 BC during the reign of pharaoh Amenhotep III in Egypt. This clock was found broken into pieces at the temple of Amen-Re in Karnak and was made of plaster with drawn columns and lines to symbolize the hours of the night. Despite their disadvantages, such as requiring constant water pressure and regular calibration due to changing day lengths with the seasons, water clocks represented an important development in time-telling technology before the invention of electronic devices.

Today’s timekeeping is much easier thanks to battery-powered devices like watches and cell phones. However, it’s worth considering how much progress we’ve made since ancient times when telling time relied on natural phenomena like sunlight or the steady flow of water from a container. Water clocks may have been cumbersome compared to modern technology, but they represented an important step forward in our ability to measure time accurately over thousands of years ago.