I'm no expert on ancient timekeeping, but nothing we'd call precision. Some possibles are:
Water clocks Sand hour glasses Sun dials Time candles I think Christian Heugens (? sp) invented the pendulum for timekeeping. Your question is really more of a history of science. I just happen know a field archeologist FWIW, -John ========== > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com >> [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of J. Forster >> Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 2:34 PM >> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement >> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lifetime of glass containers >> >> Interestingly, I recently had dinner with an archeology >> professor, interested in the Etruscan period. She had just >> discovered a flatish piece of glass i9n a dig, thousands of >> years old, and believes it was made essentially like rolling >> out dough on a slab while red hot. >> >> -John >> > > Returning to a more time-nuts-y topic.. > > What sort of time measurement accuracy would folks 2000 years ago have > had? > > For instance, were they aware of the (relative) constancy of the swings of > a pendulum of constant length? > > I remember stories from school about Galileo using his pulse as a clock. > They're probably apocryphal, and I would think that he would have easy > access to other things that tick once a second or there abouts (dripping > water, etc, if not swings of a pendulum). > > I'm also familiar with the famous Shakespearean anachronism of the > striking clock in "Julius Caesar", and the usual commentary says the > Romans had only sundials and clepsydra. So how good is a clepsydra? What > if we go back a 1000 years? > > _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.