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Ancient Egypt Technology ... Ancient Clocks.The ancient Egypt technology that kept them most organized was definitely their clocks. By casting a shadow from a point standing in the path of the sun, the sundial was the original timekeeper in the world. In ancient Egypt, the earliest form of sundial was the obelisk. The length and position of a shadow would determine the time of day. Smaller varied versions were eventually developed, particularly in Greece and Rome.
Sun dials are great when you have ... well ... sunlight. And a moon dial just wouldn't cut it. So how did you tell time at night in ancient Egypt? With a water clock of course. Those ingenious ancient Egyptians showed just how important knowing the time was, by developing a way to keep track of it at night. The water clock was a bowl filled with water at a precise time of the day (a time taken from the ever-faithful sundial). It leaked from the bowl through a hole drilled to a specific diameter. The time could be determined by the level of the water as it went down. The water clock became important to the development of accurate timekeeping. The length of days varied with the seasons but the water clock emptied at the same rate always, enabling the Egyptians to accurately divide time in regular intervals that was independent from the sun. A bit like making sure the spring was wound on a clock, water levels would had to have been accurately maintained. The first water clock appeared during the reign of Amenhotep the first.
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