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Not until somewhat recently (that is, in terms of human history) did people find a need for knowing the time of day. As best we know, 5000 to 6000 years ago great civilizations in the Middle East and North Africa initiated clock making as opposed to calendar making. With their attendant bureaucracies and formal religions, these cultures found a need to organize their time more efficiently. After the Sumerian culture was lost without passing on its knowledge, …

…possessed a bronze power-driven artillery sphere for observations, an automatically rotating celestial globe, and five front panels with doors that permitted the viewing of changing manikins which rang bells or gongs, and held tablets indicating the hour or other special times of the day. Since the rate of flow of water is very difficult to control accurately, a clock based on that flow can never achieve excellent accuracy. People were naturally led to other approaches