How Did People Measure Time Before Clocks?

Before clocks, people used the sun and stars to tell time. During the day, they watched where the sun was in the sky, when it rose, that was morning; when it set, that was night. At night, they looked at the stars, especially the moon. People even made big stones or fires to mark time! For example, if you had a fire burning all day and then it went out, that meant it was nighttime.

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Examples

  1. A farmer knows it's time to water the crops when the sun is high in the sky.
  2. A sailor uses the stars at night to know if it's morning or evening.
  3. A child sees that a fire has gone out and knows it must be nighttime.

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Categories: History · Time Measurement· Ancient History· Inventions · Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.