In ancient times, sundials were used to time, so how do you look at the time at night?

The sundial is one of the oldest timekeeping tools in China. It determines the time of day by observing the position of the sun's shadow. On a smooth stone, insert a wooden stick in the middle and engrave the time (number) on the stone. People can only roughly read the time by the scale corresponding to the shadow.

Although this instrument is very advanced, it is much more accurate than feeling. But there are some restrictions. Such as cloudy, rainy, snowy, or just at night. This kind of timer is good, but it depends too much on the sun.

In order to meet the needs of production and life, people had a brainwave and gave birth to the brand-new timing tool "Missing Carving". The biggest advantage of leaky carving is that it is not affected by the sun and has certain independence. Leaky carving, as the name implies, is to use leaky pots and carved arrows to time.

People fill the leaky cauldron with water, put a scale on it, and make use of the natural phenomenon that the time of each drop of water is constant, so they can accurately read out the time at any time of the day. This kind of timer, completely unaffected by the weather, is simple to make and easy to operate, and it is a timing tool used by many people.

Due to the influence of environment, sand is used instead of water in some places. The principle is similar. The time when the sand flows out is also fixed. This timer is basically the same as our current hourglass.

There are also those who are timed by oil lamps and candles. Kerosene and candles are limited, and through their surplus, we can also roughly know the time at night, but this is also based on feeling. However, there is at least one feasible basis. For the convenience of life, the human brain is constantly developing and constantly getting along with better ways to improve its material life.

In fact, China also has a very unique timing method, which we are familiar with as "Geng". The essence of "Geng" is also a time unit. One night is divided into five shifts, and one shift corresponds to about two hours we are talking about now. The time of each shift varies according to the length of day and night. By now, we should be familiar with "playing".