Search Results: Timekeeping

The passage of time has always been a preoccupation of human beings, whether it be a question of satisfying basic needs such as when to eat and sleep, the importance of seasons for migratory and agricultural purposes or a more sophisticated...

Keeping good time proved an elusive objective for centuries, and it was only in the second half of the 17th century, during the Scientific Revolution (1500-1700), that clocks were made which lost seconds rather than minutes each day. The...

The Romans are known for their remarkable engineering feats, be they roads, bridges, tunnels, or their impressive aqueducts. Their constructions, many of them still standing, are a testament to their superior engineering skills and ingenuity...

The Scientific Revolution (1500-1700) was driven by several key inventions, all scientific instruments that became essential to achieving a greater understanding of the world around us. With instruments like the telescope, microscope, thermometer...

The Tower of the Winds, also known as the Clock of Andronicus Cyrrhestes, is a timekeeping tower on the eastern side of the Roman agora of Athens. Built in the 2nd century BCE, it once had nine sundials and contained a large water clock...

The term “Athenian Calendar” (also called the “Attic Calendar”) has become somewhat of a misnomer, since Ancient Athenians never really used just one method to reckon the passage of time. Athenians, especially from the 3rd Century BCE forward...

The New Fire Ceremony, also known as the Binding of the Years Ceremony, was a ritual held every 52 years in the month of November on the completion of a full cycle of the Aztec solar year (xiuhmopilli). The purpose of it was none other than...

A watch mechanism using a balance spring. Made by Thomas Tompion (1639-1713). Such watches, of which this is one of the earliest surviving, greatly improved accuracy over pendulum clocks. Made between 1675 and 1679. (Science Museum, London)

A Roman period sundial of the Greek hemispherical type. (Archaeological Museum of Piraeus)

A design for a pendulum clock made by Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) in the last year of his life. Galileo never made a working model of the clock (although his son did in 1649). Illustration by Vincenzo Viviani. (Science Museum, London)