Page 41 - Orange Butterfly Book 1

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unit 1
4. Extension to History
The History of Timekeeping
every morning you are most probably woken up by an alarm clock. What would happen if there weren’t any alarm clocks, or any kind of clocks at all? for one thing, everyone would always be late, or early, for lunch. Workers would never be at their jobs on time, and school would probably start at a different time everyday! You can see how clocks are important to keep everything running smoothly.
Geared clocks, like the more common ones today, were first built in the medieval age. Ways of telling the time, however, have existed since long before that. The egyptians were doing it in 3500 B.C.! To tell time, they built obelisks, which were very tall towers with four sides and a pointed pyramid-shaped top. This strange shape was supposed to look like a petrified ray of sunlight. These obelisks were used as big rudimentary sundials. The oldest one still existing is 68 feet tall! These were very accurate, but they needed the sun to work, and were useless during the night and during cloudy days. imagine not being able to know the time just because of the weather outside! it would certainly complicate things!
Egyptian obelisk
http://interviews.watchprosite.com/?show =forumpost&fi=17&pi=4117131&ti=654686
Water clock (Egypt)
http://collectionsonline.nmsi. ac.uk/detail.php?
after obelisks came water clocks. These were literally what their name said; they were clocks powered by water. These were also invented by the egyptians, but much after the creation of the obelisks. The oldest known description of a water clock was found in amenemhet’s tomb, showing him as the inventor. amenenhet worked in the pharaoh’s court, and he lived in the 1500 B.C. That’s 2000 years the egyptians lived using only obelisks to tell time, until he finally created something better.
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