The sun dial worked during daylight, but how did people agree on what time it was at night before clocks were invented?

  • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Well if by “precise time” you mean “minute hands regularly being included in pocket/wristwatches” then yes. But we did have mechanical clocks for a couple hundred years by that point which were more precise than “around midnight” or “way past bedtime”. Given their linear nature, and measurement by the hour, even without a minute hand you could tell when it was quarter past, half past, quarter till an hour.