Although the Times Square version is really just a novelty-no one starts their midnight clock by it-there are still time balls that operate as nostalgic attractions. By the 1920s, radio and other advancements made them obsolete. The first time ball is considered to have been erected at Portsmouth, England, in 1829 most that followed were also visible from the sea. Rudolf Stielervia Wikimedia Commons // Public domainĮver watched the Times Square Ball drop on New Year’s Eve? You’re witnessing a rare demonstration of time ball timekeeping, a practice that emerged in the 19th century when large metal or wooden balls would plummet at a certain hour to synchronize navigators’ marine chronometers. Sometimes the clock had various colors of smoke to signal the time, others burned to markers or alarms, while a few even involved different incense smells so the user would be olfactorily aware of the passage of time. Although each version involved the burning of incense to track time, the system was often different. INCENSE CLOCKĭating to the Song dynasty (960-1279), the incense clock spread from China to Japan and other Asian locales. Water clocks appear throughout antiquity, from Egypt to Greece to the Arabic world, and became quite incredible: One 13th century design by Al-Jazari involved a towering water clock on top of a mechanical elephant. The water clock dates to at least 1500 BCE, the basic principle being a device that uses the reliable flow of water to represent the passing of time. Image credit: Wikimedia // Public domainĪ sundial becomes rather useless after sunset, so another ancient timekeeping device emerged. The elephant clock from Al-Jazari's manuscript.
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