Nowadays, your alarm clock is telling you that it's time to get out of bed and go to work or go to school. Sometimes we hate the clock because we want to get more sleep and wish that clock would just disappear!
But have you ever wondered how you would keep track of time if all the clocks in the world really did disappear? We can use the clock to track of time, but long ago our ancient ancestors were faced with just such a problem. Clocks, as we know them today, hadn't been invented yet.
How did ancient people first learn to measure time? The difference between the dark nights and the daylight was probably the first division of time recognized by early peoples. They would also have noticed that the sun came up over the eastern horizon and went down again below the western horizon bringing darkness to their world.
During the day they saw that the shadow cast by a tree, a rock, or even their own body was long early in the morning and grew shorter and shorter until it disappeared when the sun was overhead in the middle of the day. They also would have noticed that the shadow grew longer again, on the other side of the tree, as night came. After awhile they were able to tell how much of the day was over by looking at the shadows. They put a stick in the ground and made marks in the dirt to show where the stick's shadow was every hour.
Today we can catch the time easier with the clock! How convenient the clocks bring to us!
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