Time plays a vital role in our daily work and life, and we now have clocks, watches, and mobile phones that can know the time of every moment anytime, anywhere. But in ancient times, the ancients did not have these timing tools, so how did the ancients observe and understand time? What timing tools do they have?
In ancient times, more people were poor people, and for these people, it was unrealistic for them to investigate every moment. For these poor people, their most intuitive way of timing is the sun. When dawn comes, the sun rises to begin the day's labor, and when the sun is shining at noon, they will simply rest and then return to the afternoon labor. When the sun goes down, they go home to rest and sleep. This is also the most intuitive and cheapest timer in ancient times, if you encounter a rainy day, then the rooster chirping of the morning light is also an important "timer" for the ancients.
During the day, the ancients could also understand the time through the sun, and at night, there was no natural timer for the ancients. Out of the need for evening time, a special timekeeping profession was born - a more husband. When we watch TV dramas, we often hear such a sentence :Three more midnight, be careful of the candles." This sentence shows that the work of the husband, in addition to reminding the people of the time, is more important to prevent the occurrence of fires. But gengfu is actually a very hard profession, and when others are sleeping, he still has to go out to patrol the streets and tell the time.
Engraving is the most accurate invention of the timer in ancient China. "Leak" refers to a pot with holes, and "carved" refers to a floating arrow with a scale. According to historical records, as early as the Western Zhou Dynasty, China invented the engraving leak, but at that time most of them were drainage type leaks, water flowed out of the leaky pot hole, the floating arrows in the leaky pot fell with the water surface, and the scale on the floating arrows indicated the time. This kind of drainage type leakage will affect the speed of the leakage due to the water pressure of the water, making the timing inaccurate.
Later, in order to solve this problem, the water type leakage moment came into being. Water-type leakage engraving is also known as multi-level leakage engraving, the so-called multi-stage leakage engraving refers to the use of multiple leaky pots, up and down in turn into a group, each leaky pot in turn to its next leaky pot dripping water. This avoids the time error caused by the leakage type being affected by the leakage speed. It can be said that with the passage of time, the engraving has become the most accurate timekeeping method of the ancients.
In ancient times, the closest chronograph to the clock was counted, so the sundial was absolutely well-deserved. Sundial is a kind of timing instrument used by the shadow of the sun to measure the time in ancient times, also known as the "day gauge". The principle is to use the direction of the sun's projection to determine and divide the time, usually composed of a dial needle and a dial. The sundial needle is a bit like the minute and hour hands on the clock, while the sundial is covered with time scales. On the dial surface there are the twelve hours of Zi, Ugly, Yin, 卯, 辰, 巳, Noon, Wei, Shen, 酉, 戌, and 海.
In addition, the invention of the sundial is also extremely long, as early as 6,000 years ago, ancient Babylon began to use, China also learned to use the sundial more than 3,000 years ago in the Zhou Dynasty. In 1270, in Italy and Germany, people invented early mechanical clocks with reference to sundials, and it can be said that sundials are the originators of modern clocks and watches.
In addition to these several timing methods, the ancients will also use incense timing, we are familiar with the "three incense" is a relatively accurate timing method. There is also fire timing, which was timed by burning a wet rope knotted at regular intervals. So without clocks, the ancients could still keep time through their ingenuity.