TIME WILL TELL
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Baroness Alianor (Aliyah) bat Asriel Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA)
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Horology
Horology is the science or art of measuring time or making timepieces according to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition (©2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company). Time, it seems, has fascinated mankind since, well, . . . the beginning of time. An unknown philosopher once said, “Time is God’s way of preventing everything from happening at once,” and in fact, the Bible’s opening sentence reads “In the beginning. . .” Literature is rife with time as throughout history stories, fables, and folktales began with “Once upon a time . . .”; and an entire movie franchise began “A long time ago. . .” Mankind has made the science of time an art.
“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “To talk of many things . . .” (Carroll, Lewis. The Walrus and The Carpenter, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)
The Measure of Time - “Two natural measures of the passage of time are:
The alternation of day and night, produced by the rotation of the Earth on its axis.
The slower cycle of the seasons, produced by the movement of the Earth in its annual orbit around the Sun.
These two timescales have been important to mankind since the earliest cultures, both for regulation of daily life and to know when to sow and harvest crops.”(Mills)
Chronos - In Greek Mythology, Chronos is the deity personifying time. He was frequently despicted in Greek and Roman art as a man turning the Zodiac Wheel. He is also known as Aeon. Chronos is the Latin form of his name. The planet Saturn is named after the Roman equivalent.
"Clock" - aka Clokke (Middle English), Cloc (Celtic and Old Irish), Clocca (Medieval Latin), Clugge (Old English), Glocka (Old High German)
Clockwise - The first “face” clocks were designed to mimic the movement of a sundial's shadow as it traveled across the sky.
The Sundial - Maiamonides (b.1135-d.1204) described the sundial (Commentary to 'Eduy. ad loc.) as "a broad and level stone set in the ground, with a circular line drawn on it; a perpendicular style [in the center] is raised on a perpendicular projection, in length usually a little less than that of a quarter of the segment indicated on the stone. The shadow of the style at every hour is marked and numbered on the circle of the stone."
The Persian Fenjaan - The fenjaan measures the passage of time by using the consistency in the time it takes for a floating bowl with a hole in its underside to sink. Some have time increments marked on them.
Persian Fenjaan or Water Clock.
The Candle Clock - The candle clock is a simple concept based on how much of a candle of a certain size and composition will burn for a given period of time. Candles could be marked with lines or strings (with or without beads) or embedded nails, usually in hour increments. Beads and nails would drop into a metal bowl as the candle burned serving to alert those in the room of the passage of time. Disadvantages of a clock candle were inconsistencies of substance and drafts.
The Adbrough Sundial at St. Bartholomew's, Yorkshire. Believed to be pre-Norman Conquest.
The Clepsydra (Water Clock) - The sundial measured the hours of the day when the sun shone, the clepsydra, or water clock, was designed to measure time in cloudy weather and at night. Its earliest use was probably limited to the indication of the exact time of midnight. The clepsydra in its simplest form is traced by some historians to the Greeks (about 430 B.C.), and by others to the censor Scipio Nasico (595 B.C.)
The Oil Lamp Clock - The oil lamp clock was an eighteenth-century modification of the candle clock. The passage of time was measured by the amount of oil used from the lamp. There were several methods used to measure the amount of oil consumed by the burning lamp. One version had a glass reservoir of oil circled by a metal mount with measured markings. As the oil burned, the level fell in the reservoir, and the passage of time could be read from the markings on the mount. The oil lamp clock might be considered by some to be superior to the candle clock because it was less affected by a drafty rooms and differences in content.
The Hourglass (Sandglass or Sand Clock) - Even though the ancient Greeks (3rd century B.C.) and Romans may have had the technical skills to make the glass for hourglasses, there is no evidence at this time to support their existence or use at that time. Surprising as it may seem, evidence of the hourglasses has not been found any earlier than 14th century Italy (Fig. 1). The first written records of the hourglass were found in the logbooks of European ships where they appear in inventories of ships stores as well as cargo inventories. One of the earliest records is a 1345 sales receipt belonging to Thomas de Stetesham, clerk of the English ship La George, who purchased 16 hourglasses in Flanders for a total in sterling of 3s.4d.
Temperance bearing an hourglass; detail Lorenzetti's Allegory of Good Government, 1338
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