There was a sundial in the ancient east to time, so what did western Europeans rely on to time?
At present, the earliest record of the sundial was invented by the Babylonians 6,000 years ago, and it took a long time to spread around the world. It was not until 3000 years ago that the use of sundials was recorded in China. The sundial shows the time through the shadow produced by the sun shining on the vertical rod on the disk, also known as the "sundial". Although it is not very accurate to determine the time in this way, this timing method already existed in ancient times when the time requirement was not so accurate.
However, sundial timing has some disadvantages that it cannot be used at night and in rainy weather, so the hourglass was invented in the west. The hourglass consists of two glass containers and a narrow gap. It is timed by the flow of water or sand, so it is also called the sand clock. Hourglass timing, the western hourglass appeared about 1000 years ago, which is said to have been invented by Alexander. In order to record the time of marching, it was later introduced to the people and widely used. China also has a similar device "copper pot dripping"
Although sundials and hourglasses are good, they are more troublesome to use. Most of the time, westerners use the unequal time method, that is, every day is divided into 24 hours, the sun rises at 6 o'clock in the morning and sets at 6 o'clock in the afternoon, with equal distances between them. This method is called unequal time method, because with the change of seasons, the sun rises and sets at different times, so the time of day and night is different in different seasons.
With regard to the appearance of clocks and watches, about 100 BC, the ancient Greeks made the first timer with gears, which was invented for timing the Olympic Games. The first regular pendulum clock was invented by Huygens in 1657.