1st century AD water clock

[Flavia Gemina]

Producers of the Roman Mysteries TV series want to know what a first century AD waterclock (or clepsydra) looked like.

 

Anyone?

 

Has there been on on HBO's Rome maybe...

 

Flavia

[Klingan]

I was writing a short essay on water clocks last semester. I found some decent information in the book "Art, artefacts and chronology in classical archaeology" by Biers, W.R. and possibly a picture. I'll see if I can come by uni and get a picture.

 

Anyway is it an inflow or outflow clepsydra we're talking about?

[Flavia Gemina]

Anyway is it an inflow or outflow clepsydra we're talking about?

 

Either, though in my book it's a Roman outflow. If you find me a nice picture I'll send you one of my books!

 

Vale.

 

Flavia

[M. Porcius Cato]

Did they have only one design? Seems somewhat unlikely for such a common good.

 

In any case, here's a typical illustration of one:

[Klingan]

From what I know, the normal version should be looking much more like the numerous fountains in pompeii. I know that they have found an outflow clepsydra in Athens Agora too, it took approximately 6 min to be emptied. They believe that it was used for how long every man had to speak. That one was basically a bowl with a whole. Working on a picture.

 

Is it for private use, or a larger public watch?

Edited July 5, 2007 by Klingan

[Klingan]

Here we go:

 

 

"The Greek 'legal' clepsydra

 

1500 years later we find the Greeks using a 'fixed period' outflow clepsydra in the manner of a stopclock, to limit the period of time an advocate might argue his client's case: the greater the crime, the longer the period. In the Jewry Wall Museum you can see a reproduction of the 'dichous', clepsydra (Fig.7). With about a 20 minute running time it was employed for fairly minor offences. These devices gave rise to the expression "Your time has run out"."

 

Something like this, but with a system to fill it when it's empty and make a mark for what hour it is. A slave would do that quite well, and I imagine that nobody but a rich man would need to keep very much track of time in this manner.

 

The information and picture comes from this site.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Something like this, but with a system to fill it when it's empty and make a mark for what hour it is. A slave would do that quite well, and I imagine that nobody but a rich man would need to keep very much track of time in this manner.

 

I'd think it would be quite useful for prostitutes.

[Klingan]

There are certain occupations that probably would have use for it too yes. I should have said that most people wouldn't have any use for this kinda watch, not nobody. My bad.

[Flavia Gemina]

Cato's is more the thing, but it's not easy to see what it would look like. Yours is too primitive, Klingan. I believe Cicero speaks of the chiming of a Roman water clock.

 

I've seen both those images before and was hoping for something easier to copy.

 

The props people are going to use any image I send them to make a replica. It's for the courtroom scene in my thirteeth book, The Slave-girl from Jerusalem.

 

Keep trying! Best image gets a book.

 

Flavia

[M. Porcius Cato]

The props people are going to use any image I send them to make a replica. It's for the courtroom scene in my thirteeth book, The Slave-girl from Jerusalem.

 

Do they actually want it to work?

 

Here's a nice diagram depicting how one might work:

 

If they just want to know what they look like, here's one from Priene:

Edited July 5, 2007 by M. Porcius Cato

[Klingan]

Yeah MPC's clock is probably pretty much what there is to find. Unless you have looking for something really magnificent as the Tower of Winds at the Athenian agora. Especially for a courtroom scene I could hardly imagine something like that. However the vessel like thing would probable be what they used for that in my opinion.

[Nephele]

If I'm recalling correctly, Hollywood produced a water clock for a scene in the old Liz Taylor movie, Cleopatra. The water clock appears in the scene in which Antony is dining with his wife, Octavia. I hope I'm remembering this correctly.

 

Okay, I just pulled out my DVD of the movie. It's in scene 33, titled: "A Marriage of State". There are actually a number of quite good close-ups of the water clock (which is ticking annoyingly throughout the scene).

 

Octavia says to an obviously distracted Antony: "Do you find it pleasing, my lord?" (I think Antony finds the clock's ticking as maddening as the audience must, but Octavia prattles on.) "It was made here in Athens. Not as practical as our Roman ones, of course. The Greeks have such a weakness for... [pregnant pause -- aha! she's thinking bitterly about Cleo] ...beauty."

 

-- Nephele

[Flavia Gemina]

Wow! Thank you Nephele and Cato!

 

I love Cato's diagram of the water clock with the little cupid and everything. And I will have to get out my video of Cleopatra to watch it again. Well-remembered, Nephele!

 

I don't think the replica will have to work. Just look good, so these images should be fine.

 

Many thanks to all three of you. Email me if you want a book flaviagemina@hotmail.com and let me know if you have a preference.

 

Vale.

 

Flavia

[Klingan]

Sounds great Flavia

 

Is there any possibility to see a picture of the clock when it's done?

[ASCLEPIADES]

"Clepsydra" has an almost poetic etymology: "water stealer", probably speculating about the impossibility of retrieving the gone time.

The link uploaded by Klingan states the Egyptian origin of the clepsydra, invented by one Ammenemmes during the reign of pharaoh Amenophis I of the XVIII dynasty circa XVI century BC, presumably the only inventor recorded by name from that Civilization. The clepsydra on the picture uploaded by MPC is a design of Ctesibius, an inventor from Alexandria commonly described as Greek but, as you can see, with an unimpeacheable Egyptian name. All of this makes me wonder how many of the cultural manifestations that we commonly attribute to Greece or Rome might actually come from their predecessors.

Edited July 10, 2007 by ASCLEPIADES