The mechanism of a watch

Clepsydras were great for ancient civilizations such as Egypt, Greece or Rome, but in Middle Ages they started not to be so useful. Armies started to besiege cities, castles, etc, so the water inside them was used to drink, and not for clepsydras. Another problem was was that, with clepsydras, you just had to decrease the regular flow of water for time to pass slower (e.g: by introducing a small stick through the hole of the top vessel). Also, the climate of some cities did not allow clepsydras to work. All these problems required a new clock that solved them. That clock was the candle clock. It consisted of one or more equal candles, and some marks.  Its mechanism was still quite simple; the first candle was lit, and as time passed, its height reduced. Thanks to the marks, you could know the time that had passed. When the first candle burned out, the second one was lit, etc. But this system also had some problems: you had to be attentive to light the candles, and if a candle went ou

The second attempt in history to dominate time was much better than the first one. Egyptian Pharaohs wanted peasants to work in their pyramids  during night, but, as mentioned, with the solar watch time couldn't be measured at night, so they needed something better. The clepsydra or water clock was the solution. It measured time by the gradual flow of water. This way, time could be also measured at night. The problem was that, if the weather was cold enough, water would solidificate, and the watch stopped working. Many different civilizations used it, and made their versions. I leave you a link to the Encyclopaedia Britannica so you can check it: https://www.britannica.com/technology/clepsydra Finally, this is how it could look like:

Before continuing, I thought it was a good idea to summarize all the watches we are going to talk about. Of course we can talk about more, but these are going to first ones, in order to have a base. Hope you enjoy it!