"An hour was defined as one twelfth of the daytime"
That must have been fun for the Romans here in Scotland - an hour would be roughly two and a half time as long in winter as in summer!
That must have been fun for the Romans here in Scotland - an hour would be roughly two and a half time as long in winter as in summer!
Mechanical clocks in Japan were designed to handle those situations:
> Adapting the European clock designs to the needs of Japanese traditional timekeeping presented a challenge to Japanese clockmakers. Japanese traditional timekeeping practices required the use of unequal time units: six daytime units from local sunrise to local sunset, and six night-time units from sunset to sunrise.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_clock#Temporal_hours
Look where the sun is, remember where it is at sunrise/-set (much easier if you're outside every day) and then mentally divide the sky into segments and just ballpark it.
Well, maybe that was another problem with Scotland... ;-)
No wonder they built a few walls and retreated south....