Developments from mechanical to finger-ring mounted clocks took only 200 years of refinement and craftsmanship. (This is the sixth post of Time and Clocks, the thread that follows Time and Calendars.) Mechanical clocks were large and heavy, made of brass or iron and very expensive to build. As interest in them increased and as technical skills developed, it became possible …

The emergence of mechanical devices as a means of telling the time was the start of a revolution in timekeeping, relieving the general public from reliance on freezing waterclocks or cloud-obstructed sundials. (This is the fifth post of Time and Clocks, the thread that follows Time and Calendars.) Europe emerged from its Dark Ages, with stability and order spread throughout …

Human ingenuity is evidenced by the many different methods used to measure time, before the development of springs and pendulums. (This is the fourth post of Time and Clocks, the thread that follows Time and Calendars.) In the Dark Ages of Western Europe, many of the monasteries isolated from the scholarship and learning of the Arabian Peninsula and the Asia …

Waterclocks represented a step away from reliance on celestial bodies and are still in use today. (This is the third post of Time and Clocks, the thread that follows Time and Calendars.) Waterclocks classically have a hole at the bottom or near the base of a vessel which starts the day full, ending it empty. As the Egyptians discovered, to …