There is a simple, everyday device which influences much of our
lives and our time. We take it for granted, and perhaps don’t
even pause to consider or realise how much many of the events of
out day may be based around it. It sits on many a wall,
innocuous, perhaps even largely unnoticed, except when we need
to look at it. It is of course a clock, that little contraption
which many of us may simply take for granted, but where did they
come from, and how did they come to be? The human desire to keep
some track of or measure units of time seems to have been what
gave rise to the earliest timekeeping devices, originating
perhaps in the ancient times. The earliest clocks may have been
‘water clocks’ sometimes referred to by the fancy technical name
of the ‘clepsydra’, and may be defined as “is any timepiece in
which time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into
(inflow type) or out from (outflow type) a vessel where the
amount is then measured.” Alongside the sundial, they stand as
some of the oldest know