Since time began, humanity has been trying to quantify it

The rising of the sun, the seasons, the movement of the moon are cyclical phenomenon, astutley observed by humans. They were first used as references to planting and harvesting crops, informing social, religious and economic rituals.

Egyptians divided one sun/moon cycle into 24 hours. They were the first civilization to represent the day in recognizable units of time. About 41 centuries B.C., they divided the sky map into 36 regions, associating them with divinities.

The time of measurements . . .

In order to limit a speaks time in a council, the duration of a trial, the period of a service or a curfew, Man invented instruments to indicate a measure of time. They were used to show intervals of time, rather than telling solar time.

The Egyptians used the clepsydra, a large bottom-pierced vase, graduated inside, allowing water to empty at a fixed rate. The hourglass is based on the same principle.

The genesis of hour display

Six centuries later, the day was divided in 12 hours, probably applying symmetry with 12 hours of night. With this division appeared the first known sundial.

Two times 12 hours: the system was adopted by the Chaldeans around the 7 th century B.C., then spread in Greece and expanded to today standardization time. Our minutes are Babylonian: they took the base-sixty numbering system and applied it to hour and minutes divisions.

One hour is divided in 60 minutes and a minute in 60 seconds, because sixty is a number that offers the characteristic of having twelve factors (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30 and 60), which also makes astronomical calculations easier.

The mechanical era

During the 19 th century, the industrialization of watchmaking gradually allowed everyone to own a clock. With the telegraph, the development of time pieces accelerated. Standardization became necessary with the development of railways, which then required synchronization of all the clocks in a country creating time zones.

Time accounting entered the factories, with the working time linked and measured against productivity.