In which dynasty did ancient timekeeping originate?

The earliest timekeeping tool in ancient times was called sundial, which was used in China in the Western Zhou Dynasty.

The history of human use of sundials is very long. China was in the Zhou Dynasty more than 3,000 years ago.

The sundial can display not only the time of day, but also the solar terms and months. Of course, its shortcomings are also obvious. It is huge and cannot be used when there is no sunshine, such as cloudy days and cloudy nights.

This invention has been used by human beings for thousands of years. It was not until 1270 that early mechanical clocks appeared in Italy and Germany, while in China, it was not until 160 1 year that Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty got two foreign chimes. Although there were many imported and homemade clocks and watches in the Qing dynasty, they were all used by the palace, and ordinary people still watched the dawn.

The original meaning of a sundial refers to the shadow of the sun. Modern "sundial" refers to a kind of timing instrument used by ancient humans to measure time, also known as "sundial". Its principle is to use the projection direction of the sun to measure and divide time, which usually consists of a needle and a plane. The sundial timing method is a great invention in the field of astronomical timing, which has been used by human beings for thousands of years.

A sundial usually consists of a copper pointer and a stone disk. The copper pointer is called "pointer", which passes through the center of the disk vertically and acts as a neutral rod in the standard table. Therefore, the needle is also called "table"; The stone plate is called "tile surface" and placed on the stone platform, with the south high and the north low, so that the tile surface is parallel to the equator of the celestial sphere. In this way, the upper end of the magnetic needle points to the north celestial pole and the lower end points to the south celestial pole.

There are scales on both sides of the coffin. Molecules, Ugliness, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu and Hai have twelve hours, and each hour is divided into "the beginning of the time" and "the right time", and a day is exactly 24 hours. Most sundials show apparent solar time, and the design of some of them has been changed to show standard time or daylight saving time.