timekeeping

Below A view of Vindolanda looking towards the 3rd century fort from the apse of the bath house.

A Roman clock at Vindolanda

In CA 224 we reported a splendid new discovery from Vindolanda. The excavators – and just about everyone else – thought it was part of a calendar. Not so, says leading ancient technology specialist Michael Lewis. It is something much more spectacular. The 8cm-long bronze fragment turns out to be part of one the most sophisticated technical devices known to antiquity: an anaphoric water-clock.