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How did people tell time at night before clocks?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
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some towns hired people to wake the town for work, and someone else would be hired to wake them up. some societies studied the stars and moon to tell the time at night. and like others stated, there were candles, lanterns, and furnaces to tell how much time has passed. people were more in tune with their environment
How did the wakeyuppymen know what time to start wakeyuppying, tho?
He gets woken up by the wakeyuppy-wakeyupperer, who in turn is woken up by the wakeyupper-wakeyupper-wakeyupperer.
Basically, at least one person had to be awake at any given moment or society would collapse. It happened once and they didn't recover for hundreds of years, that's why they called it "The Dark Ages".
A wakeyuppyman is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.
sunrise probably
Cities which had someone blow a horn to wake everyone up would also have watchmen walking the city at night. Presumably, they would wake the next person up when their shift ended so that someone is awake at all times.