EXHIBIT SIGNS:

WHAT WASN’T SAID:

That they may have originated in Cairo, Egypt, but also in Babylon, India, China, with the probability of China as early as 4000 BCE, none of which had Islamic scholars or craftsmen.

FACTS:

1. The huge planetary clock-type models, driven by water and considered the forerunners of today’s mechanical clocks, originated during the 1th century and were discovered in China, the Middle East and in North America.

2. A water clock or clepsydra (Greek κλέπτειν kleptein, ‘to steal’; ὕδωρ hydor, ‘water’) is any timepiece in which time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into (inflow type) or out from (outflow type) a vessel where the amount is then measured. These and the sundials are likely to be the oldest time-measuring instruments, with the only exceptions being the vertical gnomon and the day-counting tally stick. 

3. Their precise origin may never be known, but the bowl-shaped outflow (simplest form) is known to have existed in Babylon and in Egypt around the 16^th century BC. Other regions of the world, India and China, also have early evidence of water clocks, dates less certain. Some authors claim that water clocks appeared in China as early as 4000 BC. Therefore, it should be suggested that the inventor could be Chinese, Babylonian, Egyptian, or Indian, but not Islamic.

4. The Greeks and Romans advanced water clock designs to include the inflow clepsydra with an early feedback system, gearing, and escapement mechanism, which were connected to fanciful automata and resulted in improved accuracy. Further advances were made in Byzantium, Syria, and Mesopotamia, where increasingly accurate water clocks incorporated complex segmental and epicyclic gearing, water wheels, and programmability, advances that eventually made their way to Europe. Independently, the Chinese also developed gears escapement mechanism, and water wheels, and passed them on to Korea and Japan.

5. Some water clock designs were developed independently and some knowledge was transferred through the spread of trade. These early water clocks were calibrated with a sundial replaced by the ore accurate pendulum clocks in 17^th-c. Europe.