Elsevier

Endeavour

Volume 3, Issue 1, 1979, Pages 32-37
Endeavour

Water-clocks and time measurement in classical antiquity

https://doi.org/10.1016/0160-9327(79)90007-3Get rights and content

Abstract

The water-clock was the first mechanical device for time measurement to be used by the Greeks. Previously they had relied on sundials, or observation of the phases of the moon or the position of the sun in the zodiac to locate points of time within the day, month or year; and by the mid-fifth century BC they had made some progress with the difficult calendar problems due to the fact that the solar day, the lunar month, and the solar year are not commensurable with each other in whole numbers.

References (8)

  • Suzanne Young

    An Athenian Clepsydra

  • J. Boardman

    Athenian Red Figure Vases—the Archaic Period

    (1975)
  • J. Boardman

    Athenian Red Figure Vases—the Archaic Period

    (1975)
  • Marcellinus, Peri Sphygmon...
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (13)

View all citing articles on Scopus
View full text